Dear Thorpe Tennis Community,

I want to let you know that I’ll be taking a “sabbatical” from Thorpe Tennis this winter to focus on other projects. I plan to be away from November 15th until the first week of February (with a few exceptions listed below).

As some of you already know, I’ve got a growing vacation rental business called Casas Thorpe. The project is currently composed of one house here in Santa Barbara and two houses in Merida, Mexico. Later this month, I’ll be adding two more Merida properties to my portfolio for a total of 14 bedrooms under management across five properties. 

The early months are crucial for new properties and require my physical presence for redesign and prep work for the Airbnb market. Last summer when I added two properties to the portfolio while trying to maintain my teaching schedule in SB it was truly exhausting! Working 16 hours-a-day is not what most people do when visiting Mexico, but that’s what I did several times in order to be back here teaching with some regularity.

In addition, I am looking to expand to other markets and I have a personal life-goal to improve my Spanish to reach a conversational level. I feel that the rainy months, holidays, and days with the least light are the right time to be away from SB for an extended period and so I ask for your understanding.

After 11 years of being a 7-days-a-week tennis coach and taking breaks basically only when my students did, the 6-week forced layoff I experienced at the beginning of COVID reminded me that I should be intentional with my time and energy when I can control it. Now, a year-and-a-half later, I am continuing to build my ideal life.

What I am definitely not doing is signaling the coming end to my tennis coaching in Santa Barbara because I consider Thorpe Tennis and all of you wonderful people a crucial part of that ideal life. I gave my 20’s and early 30’s to this, but it has given me even more. I love my students. I love my high school teams. I love teaching. I love being part of the growth of other people and being in service to others is a key tenet of my personal ethos.

With that in mind, although I’ll be based in Mexico this winter, I will come back for several short periods to maintain continuity. The dates I’ve already set and for which you may book lessons whenever you’re ready are: November 27-December 1 and January 14-17 (I may add one more period between those two). In particular, I plan to host my traditional Thanksgiving Weekend Group Session on Saturday, November 27th, so mark your calendars!

Warm Regards,

TT