As more and more people buy second homes abroad, the properties they are
purchasing are becoming more sophisticated, and the clients ever more
demanding. For many would-be owners, a large, beautiful and well-designed
home in an idyllic location by the sea or in the country is no longer quite
enough – they expect 24-hour concierge service, a 30,000 sq ft spa and a
private butler.
Some also expect their property to pay its way during the many months they are
toiling away at their desks in London or New York. Welcome to the world of
fully serviced hotel villas, where every whim is indulged, although often at
a considerable price.
“Our buyers will already own four, six or eight properties,” says Olivier
Beumer, project manager at the international residential and resorts
department of the estate agency Savills. “They are what we call the ‘string
of pearls’ collectors. They have homes around the world, and want to enjoy
each with a minimum of hassle. At a villa-hotel resort, they know in advance
which coffee you like, which type of milk you prefer and which cereal your
children eat in the morning. The buyers are going to be perfectionists who
expect this type of service.”
The idea of teaming hotels with private property for sale originated a decade
ago in Las Vegas. It was in the Caribbean, however, that the
luxury-hotel-villa phenomenon really took off. The international property
consultancy CB Richard Ellis reports enormous growth in demand for
residential resorts in the region in the past three years. It attributes
this in large part to an increase in the number of wealthy baby-boomers in
America and Europe, with enough disposable income to spend several million
pounds on buying a home, along with a further five-figure sum each year in
service charges.
Many such buyers expect their holiday homes to pay for themselves. This is how
it works: you own a villa, and when you are not there, the property goes
into the hotel rental pool. The owner splits the profits with the hotel once
the running costs are stripped away.
“If you let out an ordinary holiday home, you might have to chase a number of
companies dealing with its upkeep,” says Sarah Dukan, sales director at
Chesterton International. “With these schemes, everything is there already.
It’s completely hassle-free, and you have the benefit of a well-known hotel
brand, which makes it easier to let and could boost capital growth in the
long run.”
So, what is it to be? A villa on a private Caribbean island? A mountain
hideaway? Or the perfect bolt hole for a golfing weekend? Hotel villa
resorts come in many different guises – here are six of the best.
Best for celebrities There will be no better place to see and be seen than at
the Four Seasons private residences on Clearwater Bay, in Barbados. Situated
on the island’s fashionable west coast, the resort will stretch across 32
acres. Simon Cowell, a Barbados regular, has recently bought two properties
that he plans to merge.
“Barbados has always appealed to a celebrity market,” says Robin Paterson,
chairman of Cinnamon 88, the developer behind the scheme. “There are people
who have been coming here for years and would have bought before, but just
couldn’t find the right home.”
The famous need not worry about prying eyes here. Designed on the same
principles as open-air Asian pavilions, each of the 36 villas will be
landscaped to ensure complete privacy. They range in size from four to six
bedrooms and include private swimming pools, sea views and direct beach
access.
The real draw for many, however, will be the service provided by Four Seasons.
“The hotel has a huge following,” Paterson says. “We have guests who will
only stay at a Four Seasons hotel wherever they go.”
The villas, which cost between £3.4m and £9.8m, are due for completion in
2009. The annual management fee has yet to be agreed, but is likely to be
between £15,000 and £20,000. The developers say that the larger villas are
expected to fetch more than £3,000 a night during high season, which would
be split with the hotel.
020 7321 0880, www.cinnamon88.com
Best for design
It is a line-up you would expect to find at the Milan Biennale. Six of the
world’s best architects have been recruited by Cem Kinay, a physician turned
property developer, to work on Dellis Cay, his own 560-acre island in the
Turks and Caicos. Between them, Piero Lissoni, Zaha Hadid, Kengo Kuma,
Shigeru Ban, David Chipperfield and Carl Ettensperger will be designing one
of the most mind-blowing hotel and villa resorts.
Lissoni, famed for his contribution to Boffi and Alessi, is designing the
Mandarin Oriental Hotel and Residences at the centre of the scheme. “You
need to do something to lure people away from the Bahamas and Barbados,”
Kinay says. “Here we are creating a whole new community – combining
exceptional design and a beautiful location.”
The clear waters around Dellis Cay teem with whales, dolphins and all types of
big-game fish. Surrounded by one of the largest coral reefs in the world,
the island is a boat ride from Providenciales, which can be reached by plane
via Miami or a weekly British Airways flight.
Property here will come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Residences –
suites within the main Mandarin Oriental hotel building – to stand-alone
private villas. The first phase, the hotel and the villas designed by
Lissoni, is expected to be completed by 2009. The Residences cost between
£835,000 and £3.25m, with the villas (up to six bedrooms) priced from £2.3m
to £3.7m. Annual management charges for the six-bedroom villas start at
£22,600; room rates have not yet been set.
00 1 649 941 7201, www.delliscay.com
Best for a weekend getaway
If your spare time is limited, the biggest luxury can be a short trip. Less
than three hours’ flight from London, the Kempinski Private Residences La
Heredia de Monte Mayor, on the Costa del Sol, is great for a weekend escape.
The resort, to be finished in 2010, is set in the mountains behind Marbella
within the Monte Mayor Golf and Country Club. There will be 134 townhouses,
with two to four bedrooms.
La Heredia is built in the style of a traditional Andalusian village, right
down to the cobbled streets and squares filled with flowers. Many of the
homes will have their own garden and pool. Owners will be able to use the
Monte Mayor resort’s facilities, which include an 18-hole golf course,
swimming pools, tennis courts, a spa, a gym and a private nature reserve.
The properties will be serviced to the five-star standards of the Kempinski
hotel group. Four-bedroom villas are priced at £766,000, with an annual
service charge of £8,358.
A similar villa in the area would fetch £3,480 a week in rent during July and
August. But Lawrence Maeck, sales director at Monte Mayor, says that
properties there would command a 20% premium: “People will pay more in
recognition of the service offered by Kempinski.”
Kempinski Private Residences, through Savills in the UK; 020 7016 3740, www.kempinski-residences.com
Best for the great outdoors
For fresh air, exercise and wide open spaces, Canada is hard to beat. The Red
Leaves development, on the shores of Lake Rosseau, in the district of
Muskoka, Ontario, will give you everything you could expect from the big
country, as well as a little pampering from the people at JW Marriott, the
posh arm of the Marriott chain. Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell and Steven
Spielberg have homes around the lake, but Minett, the town where the resort
is being built, has just 27 permanent residents.
The scheme, which is expected to be completed in 15 years, will eventually
have 1,700 homes, in the form of detached villas, townhouses and hotel
suites. “The district of Muskoka is a great area to develop sustainable
tourism,” says Garry Leitch, vice-president of sales and marketing. “We will
be providing activities that attract people all year round.” For spring,
summer and autumn, there will be a golf course designed by Nick Faldo,
hiking in a 700-acre nature reserve and all manner of watersports. In
winter, there will be cross-country skiing, snowmobiling, ice-fishing and
curling.
The first phase of the development, scheduled to open next year, comprises 221
hotel suites in a range of sizes. Prices start at £154,000 for a studio
suite, rising to £494,000 for a spacious 1,186 sq ft flat with sitting room
and bedroom. There are also two-bedroom suites, but they have been sold. The
annual management fee is about £600 for the biggest one-bedroom suite.
0845 130 8768, www.redleavesmuskoka.co.uk
Best for understated elegance
Soneva Kiri, on Ko Kood, an island to the east of Thailand, near Cambodia, is
the kind of resort where the wealthy arrive by private jet (30 minutes from
Bangkok) and spend the rest of the week riding a push-bike. Luxury here is
defined by little things, such as being allocated a private butler, under
orders to keep the paths clear of the tiniest pebble so you can pad around
happily on bare feet.
Varying between 4,300 sq ft and 8,300 sq ft in size, each of the 46 villas is
enormous, but not grand in an opulent sense. Instead, these four- to
six-bedroom homes, dotted along the beachfront and over the hillside, are
designed to blend into the tropical surroundings, with open-air pavilions,
water features, pool and gardens.
The villas start at £1.47m, rising to £2.3m; management costs are likely to be
about £5,000 a year. Although the figures have yet to be confirmed, the
annual rental returns are predicted to be about 6% of the sales price. The
complex is managed by Six Senses Resorts and Spas.
Cluttons Resorts (020 7584 3050) and Aylesford (020 7351 3740) are the joint
UK agents for Soneva Kiri; www.sixsenses.com/soneva-kiri/index.php
Best for eco-friendly self-build
At Pezula, a 1,500-acre hotel and villa resort in Knysna, on South Africa’s
Garden Route, you can build your own private home. You can have whatever you
like, as long as the environmental board at the development approves.
Materials such as stone, glass and natural woods are strongly encouraged.
Only earth tones may be used on the exterior, and all homeowners must have an
underground rainwater storage tank. Above all, the design must blend in –
and only 15% of the entire site will ever be developed.
Residents, including the tennis stars Roger Federer, Jonas Bjorkman and Thomas
Johansson, as well as the golfer Nick Price, come here to enjoy the sporting
facilities – tennis courts, a golf course and a cricket pitch – as well as
the natural surroundings.
Homeowners can enjoy the five-star facilities at the the Pezula Resort Hotel
and Spa. However, the private homes are not serviced by the hotel and owners
do not let own their property when they are away. Moreover, golf-club
membership costs £7,500, plus an annual fee of more than £700.
There are 64 plots on sale, for between £93,000 and £143,000, but the full
price of a home will vary according to what you build.
00 27 83 382 2303, www.pezula.com
What if the properties cant be rented? Selling in a slump situation could take years and management costs could severely erode profit. A quantity of forced sales could even turn an assett into a potentially bottomless debt pit.
Serious consideration of the off peak factor and depreciation possibilities is needed.
Celebrity involvement is alluded to. This is a lure to be wary of. Maybe they are getting commission or discount or names are thrown around without validity.
Then again, if someone has seven houses, perhaps they can absorb the risk and need divesting of some excess. Good luck to all concerned in ripping off the super rich! Keep up the good work of creating high risk luxury property investment schemes.
mia, kent, uk