The good life

ONLY a few years ago, Sean Wheatley lived the sort of life that others might envy. The owner of two successful businesses, he and his family lived in a large house in a leafy suburb of Minneapolis, US.

He owned five luxury cars, including a Porsche 911, a Lotus racing car and a Jaguar convertible, as well as a boat. His family enjoyed several luxurious holidays in the US and Europe every year, wore the best designer label clothes and ate out in restaurants every night.

“We didn’t think twice about what we were spending. When we went to Florida, we’d stay at the Hard Rock Hotel and take over the top floor suites. My wife had a big collection of designer handbags,” recalls Sean.

But the Newcastle University graduate, who qualified as a civil engineer in 1993 before leaving to make a new life for himself in the States, always felt something was missing.

Working 12-hour days, he and his wife Molly took their children out to restaurants because they arrived home so late they never had time to cook. And, although they enjoyed many holidays, they were always working, constantly on their phones and laptops.

The six-bedroom house and six-figure income was not making Sean happy. “We moved to a bigger, even nicer house. But it was all getting out of control,” he says. “I was filling voids with buying things. When you buy things to be happy, you just want more. We never had enough.”

While his two children, Scott and Halle, had everything they wished for materially, Sean, 44, was aware he wasn’t giving them the time and attention they needed.

“Looking back, I used to wake up with a feeling of dread. Fear ruled my life,” he says. “I was living in fear of not having enough, fear of losing it. I was having to work to pay the bills, always chasing the dollar.”

When the global financial crisis hit in 2008, the car dealership Sean owned went bust as customers could no longer rely on credit. His other business, producing promotional items for prestigious clients, including large international companies and even the White House, survived a while longer, but was under pressure.

The crash was the catalyst he needed to change his life “I always wanted something different.

But that is when I really started thinking about what I wanted from life,” he says.

Today, having returned to North Yorkshire, where he grew up and where his parents still live, Sean manages the 22-acre estate attached to a small holiday park near Bedale.

He and his 18-year-old son Scott, who is applying for a countryside ranger apprenticeship when he leaves school this year, manage the woodland, grow all their own organic vegetables and fruit and keep chickens.

Although they have not gardened before, they are now self-sufficient in vegetables, growing everything from kale and carrots to parsnips, onions, potatoes, garlic and tomatoes in raised beds and greenhouses.

They have even learned to hunt, skin and prepare rabbits to eat. “We have ten rabbits in the freezer, as well as pheasants and pigeons, and trade favours with local farmers,” says Sean, who forages for berries, mushrooms and nettles, which he and Scott enjoy cooking and eating.

The pair have also planted hundreds of trees.

“I am earning less money, but have so much more. Our life is so much more fulfilling now,” says Sean.

WORKING towards a totally self-sufficient life, they have learned to bake bread and have even made cider from the apples that grow in a small orchard on the estate. They are also learning about keeping bees.

Sean, who will be offering guided walks in the area, also hopes to run specialist selfsufficiency and countryside skills courses on the site. “We want to inspire and involve other people in the community,” he says.

Having trained in woodworking, he is helping to build four additional wooden holiday chalets on the park, and Sean and Scott also have plans to build their own eco-friendly, off-grid home on the site, which will be heated by wood burners and make use of wind energy, “grey”

reusable rainwater and composting toilets. “Everything we are doing is about heading towards a more self-sufficient and sustainable lifestyle, but it takes a lot of time and effort,” says Sean.

He accepts this life is not for everyone. Ex-wife Molly and 15-year-old daughter Halle struggled to cope without the modern conveniences they were used to when they joined Sean and Scott in North Yorkshire, in an attempt to bring the family back together. After a few months, they returned to the US.

Sean and Scott grow everything from kale to carrots

Sean acknowledges that his working life today is a far cry from his earlier career as a successful entrepreneur, with a knack for spotting gaps in the market. Shortly after he first moved to the US, aged 24, he started his first business. “I wasn’t really interested in being an engineer,” he says.

He and Molly initially set up a small English tearoom in Minneapolis, but expanded to distribute Yorkshire tea to large supermarket chains throughout the whole of Minnesota and the mid- West.

Soon, they were selling accessories and gifts, such as teapots and framed pictures of English countryside scenes. This led Sean to spot a gap in the market for similar pictures of American landmarks, which quickly grew into another successful business, producing promotional products for business conferences and awards ceremonies for large corporations.

“We worked for all the big Fortune 500 companies, Formula One, the Masters Golf Tournament, all the major events,” he says Before long, they were taking $1m (about £606,000) a year.

Their Global Miniatures business even won the contract to produce outgoing President George W Bush’s farewell gifts – a framed piece of parquet floor from the Oval Office – to 400 members of staff, including Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld. “Everyone got a framed, signed letter from him. I still have a sample of the parquet somewhere in a box.”

BUT Sean, who had started the business from his basement, soon became disillusioned.

“In the early days, I was in the back helping make the products and getting my hands dirty. I enjoyed that,” he says. “But after ten years, the business was big enough, I didn’t need to be there every day.”

He needed something new to get his teeth into.

“Motorsport was a passion, so I started a car dealership,”

he says. Initially, he exported American cars such as Mustangs and Hummers to England.

In order to get his dealer licence, he started selling Volkswagens – a car he had always loved – on the side.

That business grew too. “I realised I could buy cars coming off lease at auction for the same price as the big dealers,” he says: “This was a level playing field with no overheads. I have always been a decent salesman. I got ten cars to start with and took $1.4m in the first year. It grew from there.”

It suited his lifestyle. “I loved racing and it helped advertise my business. I had a Porche 911 which I turned into a track car, and a Lotus racing car. It was great.” .

From this business alone, he was bringing in a $220,000 (about £133,000) salary. “But we were spending it as fast as we were making it.”

Sean had been running his car dealership for three years when the market collapsed in 2008.

“The housing bubble burst overnight. It was carnage.

Customers weren’t able to buy on credit. My business just tanked.”

With more than $100,000 of personal debt, he closed the business and he and Molly separated.

“All of a sudden, I didn’t have anything, it was all gone. I was renting a house, I ended up going bankrupt. It was a real catalyst.”

For a year, he didn’t do anything. Then an old friend from Ripon asked him to come up with an idea for a new business in order to help him and his family relocate to the US. “He needed a visa, so I spotted a gap in the market for a dog mess cleaning business, Pet Waste Professionals, and put together a professional brand.”

With a fleet of trucks, the company soon became the number one pet waste business in the county.

Once again, Sean had struck gold. But by now, material success had lost its allure.

“Business was something I used to measure my success by. But as soon as I got rid of all the material stuff in my life, I started to feel a lot lighter. It wasn’t all about money any more. I knew what was important. A weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

“I realised I had more than I ever had because it was not all going out faster than it was coming in.

I wanted something simpler. It was a kind of awakening.”

He returned to England at the end of 2011 and began working at the holiday park, helping to improve and expand the tea rooms as well as getting involved in plans to build four new log cabin-style holiday homes.

He found he enjoyed ground management, planting trees and coppicing. “I was spending a lot more time outdoors, in nature. It was more fulfilling than anything I’d done since I was a kid,” he says.

Scott turned out to be just as passionate about this simpler way of life. “Looking back, I was lazy and spoiled, before,” says Scott. “I expected money, I didn’t do any chores. I planned to study business or marketing and get a high-paying job, maybe live in the suburbs.

“But Dad has inspired me on the path we’re taking now. It really excites me. I have a real sense of pride in what we’re doing.”

Sean has no regrets about leaving his old life behind.

Sean making chair legs

“That was like another person. I am not stressed-out now, I have time for people. We live a frugal life with no expenses and have cash left at the end of every month.

“We are better off now than ever. We have enough and know what enough is. We’re content.

I wake up every morning now just loving it.”

• High Parks Estate, High Parks, Newton-le-Willows, Bedale DL81TP 01677-450555