Portugal Investment:Apartments with the services of a six-star hotel are for sale in the newest phase of golf resort, Quinta do Lago. Kevin O'Connorreports
ALTHOUGH the flight to Faro was at a yawning 6.20am, the Airbus was full. "Commuters" said a regular. "We love it down there, on our way back after Christmas". Must have been a long Christmas, I thought, but looking at the travellers, it was clear that much of their lives is a moveable feast.
Pringle golf sweaters swagged on shoulders as titanium clubs in leather carriers were put through luggage. And that was only the men. The women, for their part, had that startled look around the eyes that marks a certain age of looking after oneself, at costs to startle me for a lifetime.
Expat life, as we know it, is alive and well on the Algarve. Ever since the fabled McInerneys took a punt on time-share in the early 1980s, this south-west corner of Portugal has been a favourite of the discreet, wealthier Irish - the "high net worth" individuals, as banks call them.
They, or their parents, were already HNWs when Ambrose McInerney opened his Four Seasons Country Club on the Algarve, in response to gloomy Irish winters and a desire for the good life among his island- trapped fellow nationals. As most of their fellow citizens were strapped on the Haughey belt-tightener, can you imagine what the boom has done for their fortunes?
A lot, frankly. Those who bought then are sitting on real estate that seems immune to the current downturn in equity-based fortunes. Along avenues of villas, sheltered by bending everglades and upright cypress, patrolled by uniformed security staff, some armed, are the investment holiday homes of the movers and shakers of the modern Irish economic miracle. Think The Hamptons crossed with Florida and you get the scenario
One of Denis O'Brien's many homes, like a beached upper deck of a luxury cruiser, is a marker along a glade of Arab and English and Irish money. Impossible to guess how many rooms, but one can see reflected in glass walls some of the Atlantic panorama that provides a vista of achievement for the entrepreneur who, like a magician, made €300 million profit out of Irish air, when he bought and sold a mobile license when others were looking downwards for elusive oil.
"Buying value" was his mantra. He is doing the same with Algarve real estate, where his two golf clubs - Quinta do Lago anmd Vale de Lobo - have trebled in value since he secured planning permission for villas, selling off plots at a million a go.
Called either "frontline" or "fringe" properties, because of their edging onto fairways, the word is that O'Brien has already got his investment back many times over with 50 sites still left in his bunker. That property appreciation says more about the currency of The Algarve than any amount of tourist guides warbling about climate and views of the Atlantic.
Gabrielle O'Malley of Splash Properties spent her 20s in this bit of paradise as her father was an executive with McInerneys. He retired here. She is "well got" among the embedded expats, a pedigree which helped her secure the marketing rights for the next phase of expensive development in Quinta de Lago.
One of Portugal's largest developers, the Imocom Group, has joined forces with the Conrad Hotel to deliver Conrad Palacio da Quinta Resort & Spa, the kind of product that meets demand in this privileged part of the world. The development, a resort which will include a 158-room Conrad Hotel and 80 apartments and leisure facilities on 17 acres, will offer the comforts of a six-star hotel to owners living on the Conrad's landscaped grounds.
On site, O'Malley outlined the plans and vista, where even the terrace of the apartment (with Jacuzzi) will be larger than, say, a Liam Carroll apartment in Dublin's 1990s boom. What O'Malley calls "personalised services" at the Palacio da Quinta Apartments will include private jet and yacht charter, private chef, personal butler service and a 24-hour concierge and chauffeur facility.
And of course, of course, priority access to the golf courses that blend one into the other along this fairway of wealth and pleasure.
All payable by account, naturally, by those for whom starting prices in excess of €1 million will not raise an eyebrow. Similar might be said about potential purchasers of Palacio da Quinta, where current prices are likely to rapidly appreciate.
