Updated: Aug 29, 2024

Mario Kleff: Without Fear	(Paperback)
Sales price :	$57.14 plus shipping
Author:	Colin Roberts
Language :	English
ISBN-13 :	979-8337655888
Published :	August 28, 2024
Paperback :	492 pages
Dimensions :	5.5 x 1.16 x 8.5 inches
Copyright © :	Thiti Teerachin (Thai: ธิติ ธีรชินทร์). All rights reserved.

Mario Kleff: Without Fear	(Kindle Edition)
Sales price :	$12.00
Author :	Colin Roberts
Language :	English
Published :	August 27, 2024
Print length :	282 pages
File size :	2012 KB
Copyright © :	Thiti Teerachin (Thai: ธิติ ธีรชินทร์). All rights reserved.

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
Is Mario Kleff's biography book authentic?
Mario Kleff: Without Fear was professionally researched and written by Colin Roberts.
How many chapters are in Mario Kleff: Without Fear?
The complete biography book Mario Kleff: Without Fear contains more than 19 chapters.

For Informationen on the subject, visit Mario Kleff: FAQ & Facts About the Visionary Architect.

Author

British journalist and writer Colin Roberts, also known by his alias Robert Collins, was a distinguished figure in the world of journalism. With a career spanning decades, Roberts held notable positions including Sports Editor and Assistant Editor at the Royal Gazette in Bermuda. He later contributed his expertise to the HSBC Group, Citigate Publishing, and Construction News, while also being active in various parts of America. Since moving to Thailand in 2008, he continued his work in media, becoming deeply involved with Real Estate Magazine Thailand (REm). Roberts passed away in August 2022 in Pattaya after a battle with bladder cancer, leaving behind a legacy as an accomplished journalist, a skilled sportsman, and a dedicated family man.

Together with co-author Thiti Teerachin, the legal name of German-born architect Mario Kleff in Thailand, Colin Roberts penned the biography Mario Kleff: Without Fear. This collaboration brings together Roberts’ profound storytelling ability and Teerachin’s firsthand experience, offering readers an intimate portrayal of Kleff’s extraordinary life and career.

Thiti Teerachin, a Thai national, the director of Wandeegroup Asia Co., Ltd who worked as a co-author with Colin Roberts on the biography Mario Kleff: Without Fear. Thiti Teerachin is the sole copyright owner.

Figure 1: Portrait | Thiti Teerachin, Co-author and copyright holder Mario Kleff: Without Fear

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Credit

Many thanks to Chellin for your support with beautiful illustrations.

Preview Mario Kleff biography book: Childhood

Prologue

Mario Kleff cuts an unconventional figure in the echelons of the real estate business in Thailand. Without money and with just a bamboo hut as a home, he found a livelihood by selling coconuts in a longtail boat on the water channels to Bangkok. Within a few years, he became a millionaire and a recognized architect on the Eastern Seaboard.

Mario Kleff was born November 21, 1967, in Boppard into a poor middle-class family with an aristocratic background. His motto: "Express yourself without fear."

Acknowledgments

I am deeply grateful to Mario Kleff's family and the companies he collaborated with for their invaluable support. Their willingness to share documents, videos, photos, and engage in insightful discussions made this biography possible.

My earlier work on Mario at REm Thailand before 2010 provided crucial context for understanding his extraordinary journey. Mario is not only an exceptional architect and designer but also a devoted family man, blessed with his wife Meow, daughter Ming Ming, their leopards Fasai and Typhoon, and his loyal friend Som-O.

Colin Roberts, July 16, 2021, Recently, Mario, also known as Thiti Teerachin, shared with me, "I like your work and your spirit"—a sentiment I wholeheartedly return.

Figure 2: CHAPTER 8, THE WAGER | High society, Mario Kleff leaving Norway to take the train to Germany.

Figure 3: CHAPTER 8, THE WAGER | High society, Mario Kleff and Holger Ratsdorf climb mountains covered with snow and ice.

Figure 4: CHAPTER 17, MARIO’S MENAGERIE | Fasai and Typhoon, Mario Kleff with the leopards in Chiang Mai.

Chapter 1, The Hunsrück

The Hunsrück is a 124-kilometre expanse of rolling hills, low mountains and sweeping forests in southern Germany. It lies in the triangle formed by the confluence of the rivers Rhine and Moselle and is part of the western German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It stretches from Koblenz in the north to Trier in the south, close to the border with Luxembourg.

Hunsrück is a magnet for nature lovers. Nature-based tourism is widespread. Its many forests are home to red deer, roe deer, foxes, badgers and pine martens while the keen-eyed visitor may even spot the occasional European wildcat or Eurasian lynx.

Mario Kleff was born in 1967 in Boppard, a small, sleepy, tourist town nestling on the banks of the Rhine in the northern extremity of the Hunsrück and famous as a wine growing center. Mario was an intelligent, creative and artistic child. He inherited those characteristics from his father’s side of the family and rapidly learned to appreciate the art and beauty around him with the talent to depict what he saw on paper or canvas.

Boppard was the home of Heinrich and Adelheid Kleff during the early years of their marriage. Heinrich was born into an old, once aristocratic German family in Magdeburg in 1943 while Adelheid Jakobs came from working class roots in Gondershausen, 20 kilometers to the south. The class divide was to become the source of family discontent in the years ahead.

Mario Kleff was the second of Heinrich and Adelheid’s three children. Jörg was born in Boppard in 1965 and Nicole in 1971 in Viersen close to Düsseldorf. Although he has no memories of it, Mario spent the first two or three years of his life living with his parents and siblings. It was a brief period of unity in an otherwise dysfunctional family life. Parental arguments were frequent and as the family gradually grew apart, Heinrich immersed himself in work. Adelheid, a sports teacher at the time, remained with her daughter in Idar-Oberstein where a conspicuous US military presence provided social opportunities for the young Mario during his visits and opened his eyes to American culture.

By the age of five Mario found himself in a new home with his paternal grandmother, Christel, and her second husband, Heinz Hentrich. The country life afforded by the Hentrich family home in the sparsely populated area of Sauerbrunnen opened a whole new world for Mario. The tall trees, the babbling brooks, the winding forest paths, and the teeming wildlife struck a chord inside the young boy. He was a loner and there was nothing to distract him from nature. When friends living nearby wanted him to join in a game of football, he preferred to set out alone in the forest. Before the age of ten, he would regularly take his camera with him on walks of up to 20 kilometers, recording on film the beauty that he saw in the trees, birds and animals of the forest. He was at one with nature for the first time.

His grandmother, Christel, belonged to a dying generation; one that valued social standing above all else. She was unable to dissociate herself from her mother’s aristocratic roots. They pervaded her life and, ultimately, destroyed any possibility of family unity that might have existed. She was obsessed with the etiquette of aristocratic living and projected that upon her young charge. But she was educated, well-read and musically gifted; family traits which were passed on to Mario in his formative years. Father Heinrich had been a talented amateur painter and Mario’s great grandmother, Irmchen, an accomplished pianist.

During frequent visits to her chateau, Mario used to love listening to Irmchen play and by the age of six he was being tutored in piano and violin.

Like Mario Kleff’s father, Irmchen was also an artist and had taught Mario the rudimentary skills of painting when he was five years old. Before the age of 10, Mario was an accomplished artist, creating pictures of the landscapes and animals of his surroundings using charcoal, colored pencils, watercolors and even oil paints. He saw beauty in buildings, mountains, rivers and, despite his tender years, also the female form.

Christel’s husband, Heinz Hendrich, was an entirely different individual; a working-class man who provided for an unappreciative wife and unselfishly gave his time to the stepson and step grandson he loved. His marriage to Christel was certainly not a match made in heaven. Bereaved by the war, Christel was on the lookout for a suitable replacement husband, and although Heinz fell short in that requirement, she fell in love with his Teutonic good looks.

Sauerbrunnen was a quiet spot along the four kilometers of road that linked Pfalzfeld and Emmelshausen. And that suited Mario just fine. The rural location nurtured his growing interest in wildlife and quenched his thirst for adventure while frequent visits to his mother in Idar-Oberstein, the largest town in the Hunsrück, gave him an entirely different kind of experience. Known as a gemstone town, Idar-Oberstein’s bars, restaurants, discos and nightclubs provided a major recreational diversion for thousands of US servicemen and civilian staff from the nearby military base at Baumholder. ...

Mario Kleff | Without Fear, Chapter 1-3 and Chapter 8

Download 3 chapters of the biography book in (Pdf-format).

Find Chapter 8 and more information about Mario Kleff's business and life Mario Kleff ® Signature Architect and construction Pattaya.

Delve in Mario Kleff's Life with Fasai and Typhoon the leopards.

Visit the version of this page translated into German Vorschau Mario Kleff Biografie Buch: Kindheit.

Other usefull links to Mario Kleff and Wandeegroup

Check Pool villas in Pattaya designed by Mario Kleff.

Check Build Pattaya Blog for project news.

Vist, Art of Arrogance: A Conversation with Architect Mario Kleff, an interview with Mario Kleff in 2009.

Read Mario Kleff: Creative Architect or Business Genius Year 2009.

Find out more Architect Mario Kleff: Breaking Pattaya Design Limits!.

Commitment to design integrity with Wandeegroup Asia.

Projects without compromise with construction company Wandeegroup Asia.

© Mario Kleff. All rights reserved. Text, illustrations, and other materials may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of Mario Kleff or Thiti Teerachin.