27/09/2025
From Treehouse to LA
It was in May 2025 when I was back in the treehouse after many years in LA. In preparation for our planned Vogue shoot, we had festively decorated the treehouse to properly celebrate the trees, our waterless beauty consultants, and the treehouse in US Vogue. The evening before our shoot, we had dinner with all the participants, and I read from a fax I sent Joaquin in 1998, at the lowest point in my life.
Joaquin and Anna had advertised an olive grove for sale in a German daily newspaper in 1998. In the five-page handwritten fax I sent Anna and Joaquin on November 3, 1998, I explained how my life had changed completely due to a tragic stroke of fate and that this was the moment I came into contact with the olive trees. My dream ever since has been to become an olive tree farmer and, with 10,000 150- to 200-year-old, organically certified olive trees planted in the middle of a large orange grove, develop products that embody the magic of the trees. These products, I wrote, would then be offered in the USA through a direct-to-consumer model, excluding retail.
It wasn’t until two years later that we met in person. Shortly thereafter, I walked around the cathedral in Seville as a sandwich man to promote my trees. Joaquin, who had only known me for a short time, walked 50 meters behind me out of embarrassment. In August 2003, the first Oliveda product, the I01, was developed in the treehouse, and just 20 years later, we launched it in the USA/LA.
Happy 22nd Birthday OLIVEDA.
