‘Extraordinary people help enrich the culture’

‘It’s full of characters and it attracts equally extraordinary people who help to enrich the culture and society here.’

Mr Lorenz’s relocation efforts on behalf of the island have added 20% to the island’s population over the past year.

Post-Brexit, he still has a steady, but slower, stream of enquiries, mostly from the UK but also America, New Zealand and Australia.

‘The way the Bailiwick handled Covid has also been a major draw for many people – that and the lack of crime and the lifestyle,’ he said.

Mr Lorenz is due to open his own fund management business in Guernsey later this year, and has plans to bring a small manufacturing business to Sark.

The 49-year-old first rented when he came to the island, and then bought a cottage which he renovated extensively, and ended up selling before he ever moved in.

‘I’ve had an ongoing relationship with Sark ever since and now it is my primary and only home,’ he said. ‘Sark is my forever home, I have no plans to go anywhere else ever.'

First to move were already his friends

SWEN LORENZ has become friends with many of the people he has helped move to the island, but the first couple to do so were already his friends.

Entrepreneurs Andy Boast, an accountant, and Claudine Boast, a lawyer, are in their late 30s and run a number of businesses as well as supporting digital start-ups.

While visiting Mr Lorenz twice in Sark, the couple discovered a renovated 16th century farmhouse and they moved from London in October, the first of Mr Lorenz’s relocators.

‘Claudine had already moved to Sark when she fell in love with the cottage and where the wife leads, the husband follows. I fell in love with Sark too,’ Mr Boast said.

Mrs Boast added: ‘The beauty of Sark, the lifestyle and the head space the island lets you have, have only grown as reasons to be here. That, and our dogs are welcome everywhere.

‘Covid cemented our move, quarantining here was good as it could be. In Sark, you can be at your desk working hard, then out running in minutes watching the waves crashing and the dolphins play.’

Worldwide search ended in Sark

AN AUSTRALIAN couple settled on Sark as their new home having conducted a worldwide search for the ideal place to live.

Keegan and Kathi Smith left New South Wales in October with their two children – a girl of seven and a boy of three.

They are renting with a view to buying when the right property comes along.

Mr Smith runs an international online business educating personal trainers and elite coaches, and Mrs Smith home-schools their children.

‘We enjoy nature and wanted somewhere quiet and beautiful to raise our two children. Sark is beautiful and everyone is very friendly and welcoming. We have settled in really well,’ they said.