Marc Binder Scores One for Passion
Studio 54, photo: Maeshelle West-Davies
A year ago Marc Binder would have never expected to be doing this interview. He was just doing what he loved; decorating. With his own flat finished, he looked for something else to turn his attention to.
His job is to buy energy from renewable sources to sell on the energy exchange. His territory is Germany and he has a home office. Sometimes the bed is closer than the computer, so he thought it’d be nice to take a studio as an office. Once he had decorated it, it seemed a waste to use it as an office, so he offered it up as his own little guest flat for incoming visitors. Just to see what would happen, he placed it on several accomodation sites. And the rest, as they say, is history. In no time at all, he was booked between 70-80% of the time.
Since the space was a studio and the street number was 54, he decided to call it Studio 54, but you won’t find any disco balls there. Instead you enter to a tastefully designed space where you immediately feel at home.
Marc Binder enjoys a cup of tea at Studio 54, photo: Maeshelle West-Davies
In January he won Landlord of the Year 2011 from Home Away in the category of creative services. Of course he did! He has a great concept. The space is centrally located and because you are in a normal residential building, you feel like you live here rather than like you’re a tourist. The flat has a fully equipped kitchen, dining area, flat screen tv that swivels to your view no matter where you are, a full bed, a couch that folds out into another full bed, use of two bikes, free coffee and tea, wi-fi, plus free pick-up service from the airport or train station. How’s THAT for service!
Marc says that since receiving the award his hits have gone from 150 a month to 1500. Things have been going so well on Reimannstr that he’s opened another place on Paul List St. He really likes making people happy and they definitely feel at home in his space. He says the guests fall into a wide range and come from all over the world. He’s had people in for the Goth Festival to a group of four women from the US and UK who studied here and come back for a reunion every five years. Being on the German holiday rental site Fewo Direkt automatically puts you on the Home Away site and people from all over can easily find it.
One year later, and 10 years younger, he’s franchising the idea under the name of Studio 44 throughout Germany. So now you can open your own in your city and benefit from his success and he still gets to have his passion. Each location will be unique and yet recognizable through the same bedding and color scheme.
The Finns are in town!
On a crisp autumn morning as we sat discussing draughty old flats, double glazing and cosy blankets, Finns Salla Nevala and Laura Lindholm agreed wholeheartedly that a bowl of fish soup would go down a treat.
Finns Laura Lindholm and Salla Nevala (left to right) loving Leipzig. Photo credit: Kim Rupp-Gregory
Fish soup accompanied by dark bread and perhaps followed by Finnish chocolate (creamy but not as sweet as German varieties) are the foods missed by the two young women who have been here since late summer on the Leonardo Da Vinci programme. As part of the European Commission’s Lifelong Learning scheme, the programme funds vocational education and training projects. For Salla and Laura this means they have the opportunity to complete a half-year internship in their studied fields of graphic and web design with the VSBI e.V (Association of Saxon Educational Institutions). Along with enthusiastic and patient workmates, the conditions are otherwise also favourable; their living expenses are met by a lump sum they each received when embarking on the programme “It’s up to us not to spend it all at once” cautions Laura, and the working day finishes at 2 pm (after an 8 am start). The girls pay their own rent – the general consensus was rental rates are on the cheap side and the shared flat experience in spacious, if not tropical, rooms is part of the deal. So far though, the young women, who chose Leipzig over Budapest and Madrid due to their knowledge of German, consider this place to be a bit warmer than where they’re from. Warmer in a temperature sense, Salla who calls Oulu in Lapland home recalls the lingering -30 degree temperatures of last winter, and hospitality-wise. “We’ve been invited to many people’s homes, which wouldn’t happen in Finland. The people are more sociable here,” is Laura’s take.
Laura also likes the big city feel of Leipzig, which is the size of Finland’s Helsinki. Finland has a total population of around 5 million. Despite only being here for a short period of time, the Kemi-Tornio University of Applied Sciences graduates order their drinks in German and are looking forward to making their admittedly rather passive German more active with a Volkshochschule course.
So far in Leipzig they’ve sampled the nightlife, café scene – living in the Südvorstadt gets a big thumbs up – and taken in an art exhibition. As to the ‘where to from here’, Salla is open to staying here if opportunities present themselves, while Laura would prefer to return to Finland to be with family.
Landscapes dominated by water and family and friends complete the relatively short list of things missed by the girls. They both conclude that there are more similarities than differences between this place and their Finnish homeland.