It all began back in 2008 with apples, land and one stubborn idea

My father was a lawyer. My mother was a notary public. My brother became a notary public. I was supposed to be the fourth legal professional in the family. I enrolled in law school and left halfway through. Not because I could not do it, but because I realised it was not my life.

My parents did not take it particularly well. In 2007, partly to escape their anger, I went away to complete my military service. It was the last generation able to volunteer; since 2008 Croatia has had a professional army and no conscripts. When I returned, instead of going back to the old plan, I planted twelve thousand apple trees on five hectares in Baranja.

A city kid who had never held a hoe suddenly had to learn everything, from soil and irrigation to how a harvest is actually organised. People thought I had lost my mind.

For years, we planted, harvested and delivered apples to people who wanted to know where their food came from. In 2009, that became  "Volim jabuke", the umbrella brand for everything leaving the orchard: apples, juice and vinegar. It was not a side project. I registered it as a trademark, with a bitten-apple logo facing the opposite direction, and filmed the first video to introduce the brand. The plan was to launch a proper website immediately afterwards.

It worked. People recognised the brand, sales grew, and it seemed we had found a formula that worked.

Then an objection to the trademark registration arrived. From Apple. The company from Cupertino, with more lawyers than I had trees. The logo was completely different, but it included a bitten apple facing the opposite direction from theirs, and that was enough to stop the registration. Honestly, part of me hoped they would send forty of their lawyers to Beli Manastir to sue me in person. Just imagine the publicity. They never came.

When the trademark had to change, I requested what is known as a phase-out period, time to retire the brand, and payment for doing so. I asked for around fifty thousand euros. Apple politely thanked me and offered two hundred dollars.

In 2010, rain flooded the orchard and three thousand of the twelve thousand trees died. The website I had planned immediately after the video had to wait for a year. When it finally launched in 2011, it won the VIDI Web Top 100 award that same year as the best Croatian website in its category. Večernji list, Vjesnik and Radio Free Europe wrote about a small family farm from Čeminac. With a backyard orchard and my own two hands, I beat Pliva and Podravka.

I thought that was the worst thing that could happen.

I was wrong.

In 2016, frost left us without a harvest. Seven years of work on Volim jabuke disappeared in a single night: no apples, no income. Instead of giving up, I started making fruit spreads, guided by the thought, "if my grandmother can do it, so can I." I learned to make ajvar from my brother's mother-in-law. The very day I first tasted hers, I arrived at her door with a sack of peppers on my back and said: teach me.

Ajvar and fruit spreads simply could not fit under Volim jabuke. That brand was about apples, not peppers and tomatoes. I wanted "Volim domaće", a natural continuation. But Volim jabuke had been the first brand of its kind in Croatia, and soon there was Volim ljuto, then Volim meso, and eventually Konzum launched its own Volim domaće. Once everyone started using "Volim", I decided to leave that game. Besides, people already referred to me that way during the Volim jabuke years: "Call Stipe and order apples. Call Stipe for vinegar. Who is at the door? It is Stipe! Whose produce is that? Stipe's." So, out of necessity and from the name people already associated with me,  Stipino was born.

That same year, 2016, which took my entire harvest, also brought recognition: I won Vipnet's "Entrepreneurial Heroes" competition. The prize was a television commercial. People who had seen me for years beside a van full of apples in car parks across Croatia were suddenly watching me in prime time. Customers from all over the country started calling my mobile: "Is that really you??? That is brilliant! Stipe the Apple Guy is on TV."

Frost visited again in 2020. This time it destroyed eighty percent of the orchard. Had I not learned to make fruit spreads and ajvar in 2016, that year would have been the end. Instead, I survived because of a decision made in desperation four years earlier.

"I have land. I will not go under."

There was no plan. It grew out of the apple harvest: visitors came to pick their own apples and paid an affordable price, so I started offering coffee, tea and something to eat. I quickly realised I could offer much more.

In 2019, I registered a non-agricultural activity and construction began on the pool and hot tub. Then the pandemic arrived and everything stopped for a year. We officially opened the Villa to guests in 2021, and both Croatian and international visitors have stayed here ever since.

I did not want ten bungalows and two coachloads of tourists. I wanted people to come because they wanted precisely this: peace, food and a real working estate, not a template.

If you are looking for a conventional hotel with breakfast served at exactly 7:30, Stipino is probably not it. If you are looking for a private estate, homemade food and a host with whom you can make a straightforward arrangement, welcome.

We do not put on an act here, so please do not either.
Leave vanity at the gate, come in as you are, and you will be welcomed in the same way.
Warmly and without a facade.
♥

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