This story originally appeared in The Centre County Gazette.
LEMONT — Penny Eifrig has followed several careers in her life and has never backed away from a challenge. Her experiences as a writer, business owner, publisher, pickleball instructor and director of a nonprofit that places book vending machines in schools (Random Acts of Reading) have all prepared her for her latest adventure. She has ventured fully into restoring a 230-year-old home in Croatia and turning it into a Zadruga Medičina.
This project, she said, was born from a whisper of her heart as she returned to a place she had visited more than three decades ago. Zadruga is a traditional concept of cooperative living and shared purpose. This is her dream for the house, which has never had plumbing or electricity.
“In 1990, I arrived on Brač by bicycle, having no plans beyond curiosity and open roads,” Eifrig said. “At the top of a steep hill lined with stone houses, we stopped for water. What we found was Milica. With a warm smile and water drawn from her cistern and sweetened by homemade syrup, she welcomed us like family.”
Eifrig and her friends ended up staying a few days and she felt that the village of Ložišća rooted itself into her heart.
What made her return to Croatia in March of 2025? Pickleball, after a new friend from pickleball play invited her to stay a few days. It seemed unreal as she stood in front of Milica’s house once again. As a winner of countless pickleball tournaments around the globe and a teacher of the sport, she came in 2023 to hold clinics before the first tournament in Makarska, in Gospic and in Zagreb.
Since then, the interest in pickleball has mushroomed and her new friends recently opened a large complex in Split with 12 courts. As she sat around a table and shared pictures of her 1990 trip, the people cried out with memories and names of people from 1990 and present day. She found the house of Milica and felt like she had “come home.”
The house had stood empty since Milica’s passing and was owned now among her heirs.
“It was uncanny to find the house I had visited before and how I seemed to understand what the people said, with gestures, expressions and a bit of Russian,” Eifrig said.
Eifrig said that it is more than a series of strange coincidences that she is involved in Croatia once more. She has felt purpose, positivity and peace since returning.
After 10 days of total contentment and dreaming and working to put possibilities in place, rational thought took over. Could she really do this? The contractor said it was a half-million-euro project to tear the house apart and rebuild, I can’t do that. Even if I sold my house, etc., I could never earn it back even if I monetized the house.
Eifrig reworked her dream in the logical, safety-seeking side of her brain.
“But what I had in mind began to change,” Eifrig said.
“A new local engineer could see more of my vision for the house than the first contractor. In less than two weeks, I have set up all the elements to buy and renovate Milica’s house: willing heirs, who had not previously agreed to sell, a contractor, an engineer, an architect, a deed and emigration lawyer and contacts at the EU funding organizations. I have found elderly friends who, svaki dan, invite me to lunch and coffee. I have younger friends who will join me for pickleball and socializing. German friends, who have been drawn into this community, are relocating.”
Eifrig says her heart feels light and that she has not felt lonely, lost, confused or anything really, except deeply content. The three heirs are selling all four floors to Eifrig, from the konobas for wine and olive making in the lower floor to the attic overlooking the Adriatic Sea.
She hopes to convince the EU agencies that fund village restoration that the project is worthy of their support. She feels that projects like this one can slow the gentrification of declining communities. It is important to prevent the heritage there from being bulldozed and being replaced with luxury villas. Her restoration could result in a shared community space where old and new residents can come together with artists, visitors and villagers.
Eifrig said that it is more than a series of strange coincidences that she is involved in life in Croatia once more. She has felt purpose, positivity and peace as she presses forward with her plans. She feels she is right where she should be at this time in her life.
“What do I picture for this house?” asked Eifrig. “I see a place where bread is baked in a wood-fired oven, where stories are told in many languages and where history is not locked behind glass but alive in conversations, music and meals. I have filled a tour/pickleball trip for September, with more to follow.”
Read more of Penny Eifrig’s posts at her new Facebook page, @effensmithpickleball.
