The sun-soaked coast: Andalusia's waterfront villas and golf resort homes are tempting buyers to southern Spain

Designer villas and an award-winning hotel welcome buyers to a sporting paradise.
Cathy Hawker22 October 2018

Visitor numbers to Spain fell this summer for the first time in 10 years, down nearly five per cent year on year in July.

But Spanish officials point out that spend per tourist rose as quality replaces quantity. The emphasis on quality also extends to homes for sale.

In southern Spain’s sunkissed region of Andalusia, 35 minutes from both Malaga and Gibraltar airports, developers are building top-quality villas with high-wattage prices, catering to wealthy holiday home buyers.

FINCA CORTESIN

Opened as a 67-room hotel with championship golf course in 2009, Finca Cortesin immediately won international awards for its elegant recreation of a traditional finca, or country house.

The hotel is owned by a family-run Spanish company with plans to add deluxe homes to buy in the 617-acre grounds. The first 26 villas sold five years ago and 32 more are now nearing completion.

These top-quality, substantial detached villas have high ceilings, Italian travertine floors, solid oak doors, Gaggenau kitchens and large pools and gardens.

Closest to the hotel, Green 10 comprises 16 contemporary, modular villas with five or six bedrooms priced from £3.56 million.

From £3.56 million: new detached villas with pools and hotel services at Finca Cortesin

A short walk away built in a horseshoe around a ridge overlooking the golf course, 16 unique Golfside Villas are the work of seven Spanish architects with a range of contemporary, colonial and Andalusian designs. Prices for these villas start from £4.45 million.

Half the homes are already sold to buyers from Europe and the US. They choose Finca Cortesin for build quality, location, beautiful views and the Mediterranean climate. But most of all, says MD Vincente Rubio, they want its exceptional hotel services, available to all owners.

“Finca Cortesin uniquely offers top-quality golf, spa and a five-star hotel around the clock,” says Rubio. “It’s all about services for our buyers, most of whom are regular hotel guests and appreciate our commitment to quality and the fact that our villas are built, not off-plan.”

Next in planning are 2,910sq ft three-bedroom lateral flats, stepped up the hillside to ensure privacy, and with private pools and wide terraces overlooking the hills, sea and golf course towards Estepona, from £1.78 million.

SOTOGRANDE

Twenty minutes from Gibraltar, Sotogrande is a sporting paradise with polo pitches, tennis courts, marinas and five golf courses including world-renowned Valderama.

There are 8,000 households and 2,500 year-round residents, many with children at Sotogrande’s International School.

The resort’s latest project is La Reserva, a selection of striking modern high-end villas with access to The Beach, a watersports lagoon and sandy beach in the hills where Sotogrande SA invested £124 million.

£558,000: a three-bedroom ground floor apartment in Sotogrande Marina with terrace, private garden and parking

Prices for these off-plan homes range from £2.2 million to over £12.4 million.

Elsewhere in the resort, Chestertons International has resale flats from £267,000. Three-bedroom flats with good communal leisure facilities opposite the golf course are £478,000, or £558,000 at the marina.

WHERE TO STAY

Voted the best hotel in Spain by Condé Nast traveller within a year of opening in 2009, Finca Cortesin and its perfectly manicured golf course have won a legion of well-heeled fans.

The hotel was built from new to resemble a long-established grand country house with beautiful, well-worn oak doors and antique floor tiles taken from an 18th-century Portuguese convent.

Hand-painted walls, vast keyhole arches and a ceiling painted by the same artisans who restored the Alhambra Palace provide a suitably Moorish air, while outside, slow-flowing fountains in carefully landscaped courtyards lead on to extensive lawns edged by aged olive trees

There’s a large spa, indoor and outdoor pools, tennis courts, gym and three restaurants, one of which is Michelin-starred Japanese.

The hotel is expertly staffed throughout, so guests feel they are in a private house rather than a hotel. Rooms with breakfast at Finca Cortesin start from £521 a night (fincacortesin.com)

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