The idea for Cape Villas came in November 1999, when Cape Villas founder Nick Ray Ball first visited Cape Town with his girlfriend Kate Thompson. Nick and Kate were both a little disillusioned with England and the music industry within which they worked. Nick had recently released a song with rave reviews from DJ Fat Boy Slim, Radio One making it “Song of the Week,” FIFA putting the song on their Football game, numerous magazine interviews and a tour of the UK, but it would come to nothing. Kate as Senior Director of Universal Publishing UK was disillusioned as her seniority precluded her from spending the time she wished to spend with her artists.
So on the second day of arriving in Cape Town, when the idea was considered to emigrate to Cape Town, agreement was made, where after with a slight lack of diligent research they consulted a map, saw a suburb called Sea Point, visited and purchased a two-bedroom apartment, within which would be installed a Jacuzzi in the deck that looked over the sea.
At the time, the realtor mentioned the millennium let, as a lucrative option, but as it turned out, the letting companies in Cape Town at that time, did not use the internet, and rentals were pretty much a locals affair. Therefore, on return to the UK, a stay that would last 14 months, whilst they applied for permits to run a business, much time and effort was placed into the consideration of what to do, in their new paradise.
Considering Nick ray Ball had come from, “did not want to go” to “actively looking to emigrate” after just two days of being in the Mother City (Cape Town), It was considered that tourism in Cape Town was an up and coming market. Alongside this, for the past year, Nick Ray had been re-tuning my music programming skills to desktop publishing and was well aware that many other music programmers had transcended to internet programming and so, Nick Ray would learn HTML, the language of the internet and create internet websites to appeal to travellers.
Nick had one considerable extra skill within his arsenal; that of being a photographer, an apprenticeship with his father, a two-year college diploma specialising in Architectural Photography and three West End campaigns to his name before he was 21. Put it all together, and the stage was set for the idea and creation of Cape Villas.
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