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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Swing with the golf set
The global trend for golf shows no sign of diminishing. Figures from governing body the Royal & Ancient reveal that in 2022, 5.6 million golfers played a full-length course in Great Britain and Ireland, up from 5.3 million in 2021. Residential golf resorts worldwide are welcoming new names among the established favourites. Canadian developer Cabot is expanding at pace, adding Cabot Bordeaux and Cabot Lofoten Links in Norway to its five existing resorts, while Discovery Land Company has opened in Comporta, Portugal and Dubai.
Meanwhile, long-established Quinta do Lago in the Algarve has seen the average ages of its property owners fall from 70 in the 1990s to 45+ today, helped by an investment of €60mn over the past decade. Its latest launch is North Grove: 13 plots overlooking its North Course, priced from €3.5mn through Quinta do Lago Real Estate.
Vying for a Viñoly
When the multi-award-winning Uruguayan architect Rafael Viñoly died in March last year, he left a global legacy of buildings stretching from Tokyo to Buenos Aires. His works include the masterplan for London’s Battersea Power Station and, more controversially, thanks to building issues, one of the first skinny “needle” buildings of his adopted New York home at 432 Park Avenue. For his final project, completed after his death by his son Román, a partner at Rafael Viñoly Architects, he returned to Montevideo, the city of his birth.
Médano El Pinar is a low-level and curvaceous apartment building set immediately behind the dunes on an oceanfront plot 15 minutes out of town. Most of the 120 apartments have elevated private gardens and they all overlook either the beach or the neighbouring lagoon. The building claims to incorporate lessons from the pandemic – no communal lobbies and an emphasis on outdoor private spaces – and eco credentials include the aim of being the first “nearly zero-energy building in the region”. Médano El Pinar is set for completion in 2027 and is for sale through Knight Frank, from $421,000 for one- to five-bed homes.
Wild about Florida
“The charm of yesterday combined with the comforts of today” was the vision of the late business tycoon and billionaire philanthropist W Galen Weston and his wife Hilary in the 1990s when they co-founded Windsor, a private sporting resort on Florida’s Vero Beach, 90 minutes north of Palm Beach. Robert Trent Jones Jr designed the golf course, King Charles played polo there and the Swarovski family holidayed there. Thirty years on from its inception, the Weston’s daughter Alannah is adding her own touch to the “village by the sea” with North Village, a 47-acre extension to Windsor with 34 home sites and six terraced homes for sale.
Her vision trades the manufactured manicured look for a wilder, natural approach. Landscaper Edwina von Gal, founder of the Perfect Earth Project, has been brought in to restore the natural environment and encourage the native bird population to return. Plots at North Village start from $1.1mn with resale homes elsewhere at Windsor from $11.5mn.
An epic ski resort in Switzerland
Vail Resorts’ Epic Pass offers a season-long ticket allowing unlimited access to slopes in 37 North American resorts and two ski domains in Europe. Crans-Montana in Switzerland is a new addition this season, joining Andermatt-Sedrun-Disentis. Andermatt, owned by Vail Resorts since 2022, remains the only Swiss project where foreigners can buy and sell property with no restrictions, and its facilities include a golf course, concert hall, and now four Michelin stars.
“Demand exceeded supply throughout 2024 with prices increasing by seven per cent,” says Russell Collins, chief commercial officer at Andermatt. “Only one apartment and one penthouse remain in our recent launch Maya and we have a waiting list for our latest development Ava. The benefits of the Epic Pass have resulted in an influx of US skiers and investors.” A two-bed apartment at Maya is Sfr1.9mn (about £1.7mn) and from about £1mn at Ava.
A cinematic London renovation
Holland Park Gate is on the site of a former 1920s cinema, the Kensington Kinema, and the restored recessed Portland stone entrance remains instantly recognisable to former cinemagoers. Lodha’s 71-apartment development focuses on wellness and, to add to the attraction, lies opposite the largest green area in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, with breathing space over 54 acres.
The developer has also loaded up the facilities inside the building, inviting Italian Piero Lissoni to design the health club and spa with its 25m pool, gym and private treatment rooms. The duplex penthouse sits directly above the art deco proscenium arch and is for sale at £35mn, while the show apartment, newly launched this autumn, is priced at £12.95mn.
Go big in the Balearics
The opening of the Four Seasons Resort Mallorca at Formentor this summer is shining a light on the north coast of the Balearic island. The capital Palma and prime west locations including Deià, Port d’Andratx and Sóller grab much of the limelight for property owners, but the north coast has a longstanding reputation for glamour and natural beauty. Guests at the hotel in its earlier guise of Hotel Formentor included Winston Churchill, Audrey Hepburn and a honeymooning Prince Rainier and Grace Kelly.
“Formentor, the most northern tip of Mallorca at the end of the Unesco World Heritage Serra Tramuntana mountains, is one of the most beautiful areas of the island,” says Gary Hobson from Engel & Völkers Mallorca. “Official records show there are approximately 46 villas there and while we do have some for sale, they are almost always private off-market sales.” That adds to the cachet of a seven-bedroom waterfront villa a short walk from the Four Seasons with a strictly off-the-record eight-figure price tag. Around the bay in Alcúdia – also with direct sea access – a six-bedroom villa is for sale for €4.1mn through Engel & Völkers.