“At first I would hold her in the water, until she felt comfortable,” says Gaston Bratcher, remembering what it was like to teach his two-year-old daughter, Willow, how to swim. “Soon she knew how to turn on her back, how to float, how to get out of the pool if she was feeling scared. You have wins and losses as a parent – and those first few moments watching her paddle on her own, it was honestly the best feeling.”
That swimming pool will always be a special place for Bratcher – even more so as it’s right in the basement of his family’s east London apartment.
The family relocated from Dallas, Texas, on New Year’s Day this year, after Bratcher’s wife Rachel was offered the opportunity of an overseas transfer. The UK was the obvious choice – Rachel had been an exchange student at the University of Oxford and loved it, and they wanted to expose their daughter to a different way of life. Put up in corporate housing in Greenwich in south-east London for the first month while they searched for somewhere more permanent, “we looked at a lot of options – a few ‘quintessentially London’ walkups, then flats in Tower Bridge and Canary Wharf … we wanted to be well-connected and on the river”, says Bratcher.
When an estate agent cajoled him into viewing the brand-new Coppermaker Square development in Stratford, he wasn’t sure what to expect. “Honestly, though, as soon as I saw the building, I was blown away. It’s so beautiful, aesthetically, and the facilities were exactly what we’d been looking for. The set-up felt familiar too; the way they do leasing is very American.” The full-service rental block comes with plenty of premium facilities included – from co-working spaces and a rooftop garden – all available under a convenient lease with efficient service. And beyond the building, the green space of the Olympic Park was another box ticked for Bratcher, for whom getting outdoors and being active is essential.
“I’ve always been someone who’s played sports and been active,” he says. “After college, I went into the Air Force, and was later in the cargo divisions of Delta and American Airlines before we moved to London. It was a very physical job. I’d do 14,000 steps just at work, loading hundreds of thousands of pounds of cargo. It was intense, but it kept me in shape.” This background has influenced Bratcher’s feelings about fitness today: “I love running outdoors, at least a couple of days a week. Being able to access woodlands [in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park] and trails within minutes of home has been amazing.”
And the facilities within the complex are impressive too, he says. “Having lived in apartment blocks that come with gyms, I’ve never seen one as large as this. I use the weights, the treadmill, the rower, the spin bikes … I haven’t seen a heavy bag in any other apartment gym I’ve used, and I love doing that.”
The Bratcher family enjoy the mix of Stratford’s green spaces and Coppermaker Square’s gym, sauna and pool
After a gym session he loosens up at the sauna or in the 25-metre pool. And seeing how much Willow loves being in the water, he’s signed her up for lessons at the London Aquatics Centre down the road, where the likes of Tom Daley and Rebecca Adlington took gongs during the London 2012 Summer Olympics.
Each morning the family start their day at another Olympic venue – the Lee Valley VeloPark – where Bratcher and Rachel take turns with interval training. “It’s about a quarter-mile run around the outside, and it’s a safe place for us to let Willow play. While we’re getting our runs in, she’s trying to catch us … it’s just adorable,” he says.
Moving across the world with a small child is no easy feat, especially when you don’t have an existing network to welcome you. But Bratcher says the community at Coppermaker Square – along with its Resident App, which lists a range of events to sign up to, from yoga classes to socials – has been a gamechanger.
“We’ve made friends with the neighbours across the hall – a British-American couple that have just had a son – and all the Americans in the building came out in force for the Super Bowl event that the building put on. The events are always great – there was a coronation celebration back in May, we’ve done wine and whisky tastings, the pumpkin carving event on Halloween weekend. They make it that much easier to make friends, and you end up running into people in the communal spaces too.”
Being in the heart of east London is a daily reminder that the family made the right choice for their lifestyle. “The best thing about living here is that we have everything we need in one place. There are the shops, the restaurants … food in the US isn’t screened in the same way as it is in the UK or the rest of Europe, so we are taking full advantage of how much healthier the food options are here. Then, of course, there’s this expanse of nature too. When I go out for a run in the park, especially if I’m by myself, I feel so much freedom.
“London is large, but I can run and within two minutes be in the woods, or I can take a turn and be on a city street – and all of it is still so close to home. When I’m running through it, I just forget about everything else for a minute and appreciate how truly magnificent a place this is to live.”
Discover a new way of life at Coppermaker Square, and experience premium full-service rental living in the heart of Stratford
