Baan Ing Phu Developer Peter Ton
Before moving to Thailand in 2005, Peter Ton was at the helm of successful Information Technology business in Europe since 1987. He sold his company in 2000, bought it back in 2002, sold it again in two years later and said “goodbye” to the IT industry.
“I had visited Thailand and other Asian countries for 12 years and had always felt comfortable here,” he said. “I thought I would come to Thailand and do something totally different – something more tangible.”
Within weeks of arriving in Thailand he had started a real estate maintenance company, but sold it a few months later because it was “too operational and too much like a software company,” he explained.
“I then came across an investment opportunity in a real estate project a few kilometres inland from Hua Hin,” he said. “I agreed to invest but decided I wanted to buy part of the plot to build a development of my own and ended up with the whole project.”
Mr Ton’s initial idea was to build five villas on the small piece of land he started with. He later took the opportunity to buy more land which was part of the original plan of the previous owner. Currently the project measures over 80 rai, some 14 hectare.
Mr Ton’s vision of the developing a villa project is somewhat different from many other project developers. “First of all, Baan Ing Phu is not money driven but quality driven, so for every decision we make, we always ask ourselves these questions:
- What are the advantages for the customers
- Does it improve Baan Ing Phu
- And does it disturb someone?
“For me this is a standard way of thinking that I started to do a long time ago while in the IT industry,” he said.
Mr Ton feels he is in a “privileged” position. “While at Baan Ing Phu all customers have the possibility to build their private dream villa, I am in a position to build my own village and not many people can say that,” he said.
“I can certainly visualize how Baan Ing Phu look like in a few years when it is completed,” Mr Ton added. “
To develop a comfortable living environment takes a totally different approach from taking a piece of land and constructing 40 or 50 villas”.
“We create homes, not houses. At Baan Ing Phu, people feel at home immediately whether they own or rent a villa. They feel comfortable from the first day. This feeling is created by the living environment, the residence they stay in and the services they get from our team,” he said.
“I have lived at Baan Ing Phu from the start and will stay at Baan Ing Phu,” Mr Ton said. ”Where else would I live,” he added.