From the traditional facade of whitewashed walls and green shutters, it is
difficult to imagine that inside is the high-tech recording studio and huge
Arabian-style party room of a songwriter and record producer who has sold
40m records during a career spanning more than three decades. But Mike Myers
likes it that way.
The Algarve may be popular among the “gin and Jag set” for its plush white
villas on manicured golf courses – including the 640-acre, 400-property
Amendoeira Golf Resort, which is now taking shape. Myers, 58, however, has
found a slice of alternative Algarve, tucked away among orange and olive
groves in the countryside around Silves, 35 minutes from Faro airport.
“My previous life in London was all very cut-and-thrust, and I spent most of
my time in the dark,” says Myers, who penned the Nolan Sisters hit I’m in
the Mood for Dancing, which is still earning him royalties more than 25
years on. “Here, it’s all about the light. It’s a great place for musicians
to disappear in the middle of nowhere and be anonymous.”
Myers lives with his girlfriend, Marion Buz, 55, a German lawyer, in a
converted three-bedroom quinta. Next door is his recording studio, where he
is embarking on a project to nurture young local musicians, with the help of
one of the Algarve’s most famous residents, Cliff Richard.
“We don’t go to the coast often – towns such as Vilamoura aren’t really
Portugal,” he says. “We love being in Silves, which has a great history,
culture and energy. There are lots of artists and musicians here, and it is
a truly international community with great tolerance and no egos.”
The number of upmarket developments being built despite the economic gloom –
among them Monte Rei, with a Jack Nicklaus golf course and a restaurant run
by a chef from El Bulli, the celebrated restaurant near Barcelona – is
testimony to the resilience of the Algarve’s property market, which has
avoided the pile-’em-high, buy-to-let frenzy and subsequent collapse seen in
its neighbour, Spain. Last month’s opening of a £150m Formula One racetrack
at Portimao will bring even more international attention to the coast.
Yet, like Myers, a growing number of British buyers have shunned the classic
Algarve expat life in favour of a more authentic alternative. Among them are
Wendy and Brian Goodall, who live in Sao Bras de Alportel, 20 minutes inland
from Faro.
They converted “four walls and a roof that needed to be replaced” into their
five-bedroom country home, which they are now selling, due to ill health,
for £800,000 through Winkworth Portugal. The house has 10,000 square metres
of land, six stables, a dressage arena, two swimming pools and a
three-bedroom wooden chalet that rents out for up to £480 a week.
“Breakfast television followed by 11am gin and tonics isn’t our scene at all,”
says Wendy, 62. “We’ve seen much younger friends move to the coast and go
mad from doing nothing.”
Brian, 63, is equally sad to go. “This is as much noise as we ever have to
deal with,” he says, stopping for a moment to acknowledge the faint trickle
of the poolside fountain. “We can be in Seville in 90 minutes. We enjoy the
peace and quiet. We go to the beach for walks, not to sunbathe, and we like
to keep active maintaining our property.”
The boundary that separates the Algarve’s beach bunnies and its hill-billies
is the N125, the coast’s main artery, says Mary Mangan, managing director of
Winkworth Portugal. “The coastal resorts are ideal for holiday homes or for
when you first move to the Algarve and need to build up a support network,”
she says. “There are Michelin-starred restaurants, but no local tascas where
you can buy chicken piri-piri for £6. When you live here permanently, you
tend to want a different lifestyle, something a bit more real, a few miles
inland.”
Properties away from the resorts can also be substantially cheaper.
Two-bedroom townhouses at Vale do Lobo start at about £380,000, but in
desirable inland towns such as Santa Barbara, the Loule area or Boliqueime,
close to the “golden triangle” of Quinta do Lago, Vale do Lobo and
Vilamoura, you can buy a three-bedroom villa with a pool from £240,000.
Further up into the Monchique mountains – “hippie, grow-your-own territory,
with its own cuisine and a real mountain feel”, as Mangan puts it – the
terrain becomes more dramatic and prices fall further. Sulgar, an
English-run agency near Portimao, has rustic houses around Alferce from
£78,000. The Algarve’s “wild west” coast is also largely unexplored; you can
pick up a three-bedroom country house with a pool for less than £160,000.
Lisa and Tony Boland, and their children, Tabitha, now 25, and Richard, 21,
left southern Ireland, where Tony was restoring Jeremy Irons’s Kilcoe
Castle, six years ago, landed in Monchique and have never left. They now run
a sweet shop, Loja do Chocolate, on one of the town’s cobbled hills, where
they are introducing the locals to the joys of pick’n’mix. They live in a
rented two-bedroom house in the nearby woods.
“There’s so much more to the Algarve than the Strip, as the coast is known,”
says Lisa, 52. “We wake up breathing fresh mountain air, looking at fields
of mimosa and walnut trees. It’s a fabulous, stress-free, healthy way of
life. We’ll never be rich doing this, but we feel we’ve won the lottery just
by living here.”
Caroline Thomas, a chartered surveyor, has found her own niche among the
dramatic granite terraces of the Monchique mountains. Here, German buyers
and the odd British resident eke out an ecofriendly existence in converted
adobe houses, cultivating carob, cork or organic honey and running art
galleries. Thomas, a director of West Algarve, sources ruins and manages
building projects on country properties up to 20 miles inland, typically
between five and 50 acres of land, with vineyards, orange groves and olive
trees. Fully restored farmhouses start at £180,000.
“I find properties by chatting to local shepherds and listening in cafes,
which instantly knocks off the £30,000 an estate agent would charge, and I
have a trusted team of architects and builders to sort out planning issues
and boundary problems,” she says. As an example, she cites a ruined cottage
in Val de Agua, “close enough to the new racetrack at Portimao to benefit
from rental demand, but not within screeching distance”. With 15 acres of
land, it can be bought unrenovated for £80,000.
“These were busy agricultural areas until about 30 years ago,” she says. “Then
tourism began, the younger generation left to become waiters on the coast,
and you can now find tons of abandoned farms. Although we’re in a busy
tourist resort, it’s emptying out here inland. It’s all just sitting here
waiting to happen for people who like that self-sufficient, slightly
bohemian existence.”
Hugh Crowther, 60, a former oil executive from Twickenham, and his wife,
Melodie, 50, spent eight years converting a run-down 150-year-old farmhouse,
set in a nature reserve in Almancil, into a four-bedroom villa. Now that
three of their close friends have moved to the area, they are selling their
ecofriendly home, with an infinity pool, landscaped gardens and an acre of
fruit orchards, for £1.18m through Unique Living “to develop a little
community of our own”, as Crowther puts it. “Farms and even a small village
are on our wish list.”
“There is an increasing trend among British expats who already have a house
here to move out into the country,” he adds. “The roads have improved, the
bureaucracy has become more manageable and the government is focusing on
rural development to relieve the pressure on the coast.”
How can you join them? Leave the Jag in the garage, for a start, and opt for a
local tipple rather than a G&T, Crowther suggests. “Drink some medronho spirit
with old men in local cafes, praise their carob trees and casually inquire
whether anything is for sale,” he says. “That’s the way to uncover hidden
gems in the Algarve countryside.”
Winkworth Portugal; 00 351 289 355964, www.winkworth.pt
. West Algarve; 00 351 916 388119. Sulgar; 00 351 282 458062, www.sulgar.com
. Unique Living; 0845 430 0185, www.uniqueliving.com
Bored by the beach?
Three Portuguese homes away from the tourist hustle and bustle
Terras Novas £1.33m Casa Lydia is a three-bedroom converted quintawith
six bathrooms, three reception rooms, a courtyard – and a study in a turret
with sea views. The property has an artist’s studio, an outdoor pool, a
half-size tennis court and a separate three-bedroom guest cottage, as well
as mature gardens with roses and fruit trees. It is two miles from the beach
at Salgados, three miles from Albufeira and a 30-minute drive from Faro
airport. Knight Frank; 020 7629 8171, www.knightfrank.com
Albufeira £799,000 Villa Novas Mares is a four-bedroom property with views
across the region from its terraces. Set in three acres of land, it has
three reception rooms, four bathrooms, a games room, a wine cellar and a spa
area with a sauna and a whirlpool. It is in Albufeira, 12 miles along the
coast from Portimao. Jackson-Stops & Staff; 020 7828 7387, www.jackson-stops.co.uk
Tavira £466,000 One of 78 properties to come from the conversion of the
Convento das Bernardas, a 16th-century nunnery. Spread over two floors, the
flat has three bedrooms, two bathrooms and views over the salt lakes at
Tavira; the owner will also be able to use the development’s communal pool.
It is a 25-minute drive from Faro and a 1¼hour drive from Seville. Winkworth
Portugal; 00 351 289 355964, www.winkworth-portugal.com
