THE people behind Thailand’s hottest property development have a clear idea of
who will buy their luxury homes. “We don’t want anyone like Victoria
Beckham, because that would bring in the paparazzi. The other residents
wouldn’t like it,” says Harsh Roopchand, the director of Six Senses resorts
and spas. “We expect our clients to be wealthy but low-key.”
High-rolling hedonists will be familiar with the Six Senses concept: the
company is behind the Soneva and Evason resorts in the Maldives and Vietnam,
and at other sites in Thailand. But its latest development, Soneva Kiri,
which nestles in the rainforest on Koh Kood, a small island near the
Cambodian border, is its first venture into selling properties.
“People who stayed at our resorts on a regular basis liked what we did and
kept asking if they could buy a property for themselves,” says Sonu
Shivdasani, the man behind Six Senses, who was at Oxford with the Tory
leader David Cameron and still counts him as a friend.
Sonu and his Swedish wife Eva, a former model, put their names together for
Soneva and Evason and now operate a hotel and spa empire that includes the
Maldives destinations Soneva Fushi (a favourite with Madonna) and the
spectacular Soneva Gili, where the best villa lets for £6,000 a night. The
couple have come a long way from the days when Eva put talcum powder in
Sonu’s hair so that bank managers would stop refusing him loans because he
looked too young.
Sonu and Eva had already hoped to build villas for sale in the Maldives, but
found the legal process too complicated and so bought a 150-acre plot of
land in the Bay of Thailand. Getting to Soneva Kiri involves a flight from
Bangkok to a little town called Trat and then a 45-minute ride in a
speedboat, but Six Senses has bought land on a nearby island so that you
will soon be able to fly in Soneva Kiri’s private plane direct from Bangkok.
Building work on the villas is well under way, with the largest and most
expensive of the homes (£2.2 million) almost complete. Its design is
distinctively Thai and the house is built of locally grown eucalyptus and
makka wood, with bamboo cladding on the walls, and decking of New Zealand
pine from managed forests. The emphasis here, as with all Soneva properties,
is on eco-awareness mixed with luxury – to spoil the guests but not the
environment. Energy-saving measures such as “grey water” systems and
state-of-the-art glazing have been incorporated into the design. They also
aim to cut carbon dioxide emissions to zero by 2010. The word “house”
doesn’t do justice to the show home: it’s more of a tropical estate, a
series of well-spaced rooms where guests won’t get on each other’s nerves.
The buildings have a series of tented roofs that look like canvas but are
actually a robust man-made fabric used on sports stadiums.
All the houses are large – from four to six bedrooms – and have at least an
acre of land. The bedrooms have outdoor bathrooms with cylindrical showers
created from recycled glass blocks. There will be a gym for each house, plus
a yoga pavilion, sauna and spa suite for those essential Thai massages. The
television room can be converted to a guest suite, so that you could
accommodate 12-13 people in the largest house. A particularly nice feature
is the Tree House suite for children, with bunk beds in knobbly wood and a
slide from the balcony into the swimming pool.
Mike Sweet, the project manager, says: “We learnt a lot from building the
other resorts, and we have developed a lot of green techniques, so we’re
taking all the best features of those and putting them in here.”
The island is remote but has a good basic infrastructure – 30km (19 miles) of
concrete roads, a small hospital, a police station (goodness knows what they
do all day), electricity and water. It’s a low-density development and,
because of the forest and the natural construction materials,the buildings
are unobtrusive. When work is complete, there will be 36 villas (20 on the
beach and 16 in the hills) ranging from £1.2 million to £2.2 million. Soneva
Kiri will also be a conventional resort with 42 guest rooms (essentially
smaller villas with pools), with three restaurants, a cinema built on stilts
over the water, a spa and shops. In keeping with the eco-theme, transport
around Soneva Kiri will be by electric golf cart or bicycle.
Owners can put their villas into the rental pool for a service charge of 16
per cent of the rental income, and they also get 20 per cent off their bill
for restaurants, housekeeping, water sports and the use of a private chef.
Foreigners cannot buy freehold property in Thailand, so that you can buy the
fabric of your house at Soneva Kiri but not the land that it sits on.
Instead, an offshore company is established in which villa owners hold
controlling interests, with a Thai nominee as “owner”. You then take
repeating leases from this company in tranches of 30 years, up to a quoted
potential of 120 years – and possibly longer, though that’s never been
tested in law. The legal process appears to be complicated, but in-house
lawyers are available to reassure you.
Sonu expects that the buyers will be wealthy baby boomers whose preference is
for homes in managed estates that are remote but accessible. There will also
be a good international mix, with quotas being allocated to buyers from the
UK, mainland Europe, India and the Middle East. The quota for Russian buyers
is lower, on account of a few episodes of bad behaviour at existing resorts,
such as demanding to be taken big-game fishing in protected waters.
Sonu reckons that this will be his best project yet, but he’s not sitting
back: he is also looking to create eco-friendly resorts in Mexico, Belize,
Panama and Guatemala. But what he is really looking forward to is showing
off Soneva Kiri to his mother, who has a 20 per cent share in the business.
“When I was at Oxford she used to scold me for not working hard enough and
say: ‘You are a lazy bum!’ Now she says I work too hard. She doesn’t say
she’s proud of me, that is not her way, but I know that deep down she is.”
Savills International: 020-7016 3740 www.sixsenses.com
What Samtam seems to glide over is that there is a marked difference between a Soneva and an Evason resort and what we are talking about here is a Soneva, their high end brand. Having travelled endlessly around the planet staying at virtually all the top class beach side resorts, I can safely say that the Soneva Style is both ground breaking and certainly 'style' in the most literal interpretation. However, clearly 'style' is in the eye of the beholder, and it depends what that eye has seen for any comment to be valid.
Having experienced many Soneva resorts, I have no doubt they will achieve the prices they have established. Think these prices are expensive by Thai standards- just look at the Aman Villas on Phuket. Furthermore, what many top hoteliers have woken up to is the substantial added value that their basket of services, including maintenance and letting adds to the raw property value, in some instances adding as much as 100%, especially when appealing to a world market.
Tim Simond, London, UK
The key here, which you, (Savills or Six Senses) seem to glide over, is the ownership of these properties. There are huge uncertainties about land ownership in Thailand at the moment, which the government is not choosing to address. Of course lawyers are telling you that title is secure, but as you state, nothing has yet been tested in court. Furthermore, the prices you are suggesting for these properties are exhorbitant for Thailand, (the more so given the title issue). As a final point, has anyone seen the "style" of Evason resorts? Of all the resorts in Thailand, they are the least interesting to me.
Samtam, Bangkok, Thailand