Luxury villa scheme launched in Algarve

Sunday Business Post - Property Section - May 6 2007

The Oceanico Group is targeting the upper end of the holiday home market with its latest development on the western Algarve in Portugal.

The scheme of €2 million luxury villas is being marketed under Oceanico’s Prestige brand and will include just 12 villas set within the €500 million Amendoeira golf resort, which is home to two new courses designed by Nick Faldo and Christy O’Connor Junior.

Each villa features a private pool heated by solar panels, jacuzzis, internal bars, underfloor heating and intelligent home control systems, which can be monitored from Ireland.

The four and five-bedroom Moorish-themed properties will form a traditional style pink walled village, with quiet courtyards, cobbled steps and cloistered roof terraces, and will range in size from 300 to 400 square metres. Each plot measures from 1,600 to 2,500 square metres.



Purchasing a Prestige branded property gives the owner membership of seven Oceanico golf courses in the Algarve, and complete access to all of the other facilities in the resort.

Prestige members will also have access to a high level of personal lifestyle services, including a private concierge, a dedicated car service and the use of a Sunseeker luxury cruiser, which is moored nearby.

The new Oceanico Prestige brand and luxury developments will be officially launched on May 15 and 16 at an invitation-only exhibition in the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin.

The Faldo and O’Connor courses at Amondeoira are scheduled for completion next spring. Facilities will include an on-site golf academy with professional tuition for golfers of all levels, a pro-shop, bar and restaurant.

Tennis courts, astro-turf football pitches, an indoor gym, a kids’ club, swimming pools, an interactive arcade, cafes and restaurants will also be located within the resort.

The 640-acre Amondoeria development will also be home to a mix of 92 two and three-bed apartments, ranging from 104 to 134 square metres and starting at €495,000.

There will also be three-bed villas measuring 235 square metres priced from €950,000. The second phase of the development went on the market last month.

Oceanico is expecting the properties to appreciate by 25 to 30 per cent over the course of the 22-month build, and then by approximately 10 per cent a year after completion.

Annual rental returns are estimated at 4.5 per cent, and anyone who rents the properties will benefit from discounted green fees on the O’Connor and Faldo courses.

Amondeoira is situated six kilometres from the coastal town of Silves and 60 kilometres from the Ryanair and Aer Lingus-serviced Faro airport, via the recently completed A22 motorway.

Silves has a 15th century cathedral and warm water beaches, along with a thriving bar and restaurant scene.

Oceanico Group completed the €125 million purchase of five leading Algarve golf courses in March 2007, all located in close proximity to each other in the resort of Vilamoura.

These include the Oceanico Victoria, an Arnold Palmer signature course, which held the World Golf Championships in 2005 and will host the PortugueseMasters European Tour event in October this year.

Further Oceanico Prestige properties are planned for the Vilamoura sites.

Oceanico was formed by Drogheda businessman and ex-Bewleys Hotels director Gerard Fagan along with Briton Simon Burgess in 2000, and has a current Portuguese property portfolio worth more than €2 billion.

The company is currently developing further golf projects including a Seve Ballesteros designed course at Royal Obidos on the Silver Coast north of Lisbon, and in the Azores.