Guten Tag. Sprechen Sie Deutsch?
Martina Robinson and Frank Harmsen certainly do. The married couple from Hamburg, Germany, have carved out a successful niche market in Nova Scotia selling real estate to Europeans – as well as to Canadians and Floridians – through their brokerage, Robinson & Harmsen Lifestyle Real Estate.
About one-quarter of their clients are home buyers from Europe who, say Robinson and Harmsen, “are attracted to the natural beauty of a place that engenders their sense of adventure and the values of a clean, safe environment.”
The small firm has a main office in Musquodoboit Harbour, N.S. (pop. 2,139) where Robinson is broker/owner and Harmsen is managing director/owner of the company. There are branch offices in nearby Salmon River Bridge and Yarmouth. The company is represented internationally in three offices in Germany and single offices in Austria, Switzerland and Naples, Fla.
Martina Robinson and Frank Harmsen (Photo: Julia Robinson)
Born, raised and educated in Hamburg, Harmsen is a former investment banker who has an EU German real estate broker’s license. He met Robinson in the early ʼ80s through a mutual acquaintance. She was visiting Hamburg and lived with her family in Montreal. There was an initial attraction but both were married at the time “with lives and families underway.” Martina moved once again with her family to Nova Scotia in 1981 when her businessman father was re-located to the province’s Eastern Shore.
It wasn’t until 2005 when the couple encountered each other again. Now both divorced with seven children between them (four for him, three for her) they say the attraction between them was re-kindled. They married in 2007 and a new life and business was born. Robinson obtained her real estate license and earned her broker’s license in 2008.
Harmsen continued to live and work between Germany and Nova Scotia until 2013 when he immigrated to Canada.
The couple share an entrepreneurial spirit so they formed a company to offer a variety of services for the province’s 84,000 people of German ethnic origin, 2,300 Swiss and 1,500 Austrians. Initially, the services included helping with translation, immigration and relocation of German-speaking people to Nova Scotia. In 2008, they incorporated a brokerage in the province in conjunction with the exclusive brokerage firm of Robinson & Harmsen die Makler, which they had previously established in Germany.
Robinson calls herself a “serial lifestyle entrepreneur” and says her husband shares her values of “Life. Work. Harmony.” They own a house on the Eastern Shore in Oyster Pond, 45 km east of Halifax.
“We are here by choice,” she says. “The air doesn’t vibrate here as it does in the big cities. It’s all about balance, but life comes first. Small is fine and less is more.”
Robinson is an inveterate “meditative” knitter and Harmsen is an avid Atlantic salmon fisher. Both say they are team players who operate the family-owned business as equal and complementary partners.
“The acknowledgement of our dependence on one another liberates us,” says Robinson, who calls her husband and business partner “an excellent teacher who exudes a style that is a calm and measured approach coupled with an intellectual logic.” As for her own logic, she says “it comes from a more intuitive place, or what people call emotional intelligence.”
Harmsen agrees, adding that his wife sees the big picture “and that allows her to visualize possible situations and scenarios and chart a positive approach toward solutions.” Robinson adds it is important that the solutions arise from harmony that requires a certain introspection from both of them.
They named their company Lifestyle Real Estate because harmony, balance and work satisfaction are the pillars of their life and business. Their attitude reflects the ideas of author Heather Schuck, who wrote, “You will never feel truly satisfied by work until you are satisfied by life.”
Robinson says their real estate careers involve “serious fun and good business” and she easily identifies with historical figures like Mahatma Gandhi who believed that “happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do is in harmony.”
Several years ago they created Connect, a quality, glossy magazine as a platform for marketing their inventory and added lifestyle articles. The annual publication contains 64 pages or more – in German and English – promoting their properties in Europe, Nova Scotia and Florida.
There are also articles about subjects ranging from a feature on the local Salmon River Country Inn, to a four-page profile of a Nova Scotia luthier (a maker of stringed instruments such as guitars or violins) titled, A Life in Tune. It includes photos by Halifax professional photographer Julia Robinson, who is Martina Robinson’s daughter and who helps design and produce the magazine. (She also took the photos for this story for REM.)
A peek at the eight previous editions of the magazine – one was 72 pages – reveals scores of articles about provincial history, community, culture, ecology, lifestyle and other stories and poems that reflect the couples’ ideology, business practices and way of life. One article is titled How to Live on an Island while another is about keeping warm with cookies and chocolate. One two-page ad reads, Don’t wait to buy land; buy land and wait. (Full disclosure: A one-page article by the writer of this REM article was published in the eighth annual 2015-2016 edition, for which no payment was requested or received.)
Robinson is editor and Harmsen serves as the magazine’s financial controller. It is published in association with their family-owned, communication design and marketing firm CC Group Publishing.
Marketing considerations aside, Robinson says the magazine “engenders a symbiotic connection with their community.” Printed copies of the magazine are available for free upon request and are showcased at select locations. It is also available online at www.robinsonharmsen.com.
Robinson admits the magazine excites her, calling every issue “an adventure that provides a distinctive and visually engaging cross-marketing medium that appeals to a wide range of professionals.”
It’s pretty obvious that Robinson and Harmsen are not ready to say Auf Wiedersehen to their lifestyle, real estate firm or Connect magazine anytime soon.
Dennis McCloskey is a contributing writer for REM.
