ABOUT APAULINHA

What is Apaulinha?

Apaulinha is a private estate of nine single-family villas set on twelve hectares near Grândola, in the Alentejo region of Portugal, at the heart of the Comporta–Melides–Grândola triangle. Each villa is sold individually with full ownership title, delivered fully equipped, furnished and decorated.

The estate is developed within Portugal's rural tourism framework — a "Hotel Rural" classification licensed by the Municipality of Grândola — which allows nine private homes to be complemented by common buildings and shared services. The legal structure permits division into horizontal property (propriedade horizontal), so each owner holds a complete, individual title to their villa. The building permit has been obtained; a small number of additional common buildings, already validated under a PIP (Pedido de Informação Prévia), will be added through a licence amendment filed during construction.

Eight of the nine villas have four bedrooms and four bathrooms, with large living areas, large kitchens and a private pool; the ninth is a smaller two-bedroom home. Each villa stands on a plot of approximately one hectare, positioned on undulating terrain among cork oaks, at different levels and orientations, so that no home overlooks another. The architecture and the furniture are both the work of the design duo Babzoe & Labrousse — Ambre Marazzi and Julien Labrousse — and every piece of furniture is an original work created specifically for these houses and included in the sale.

Deliberation runs through the whole project: Apaulinha uses less than half of its authorised building capacity, a choice that preserves the landscape and establishes the estate's defining quality — nine homes where considerably more would have been permitted. Shared amenities include a reception and restaurant, a spa and gym, a padel court, an underground bar, a tree house for reading and work, and a natural lake at the edge of the property for swimming.

The name derives from "papoula", the Portuguese word for poppy — a flower that grows wild, briefly and intensely. The project's guiding idea is "the art of disappearing": architecture that recedes into the land rather than announcing itself.

Apaulinha does not set out to create a new destination. It is a rare residential offering inside an already established luxury micro-market, twenty minutes from the Atlantic beaches and around 1h15 from Lisbon's international airport.