LIVING AT APAULINHA

What services are available to residents?

Apaulinha pairs nine private villas with an unusually complete set of shared facilities for an estate of its size — a reception and restaurant, a spa and gym, a kids room, a bar, a work retreat, an equipment house, a padel court and a natural swimming lake, all supported by a permanent resident team.

The reception and restaurant building anchors daily life: breakfast service, a simple snacks menu, a selection of wines and local products, and fuller catering on request. The spa and gym comprise a sauna, a cold bath and a multi-purpose fitness room equipped for cardio, weights and soft gymnastics, with a massage room planned. Families have a dedicated Kids Room with games and age-appropriate activities.

Three of the common spaces are more idiosyncratic. The Bunker Bar is a small underground building with the spirit of a high-end urban bar-club — intended for evenings among friends, run on a self-service basis with common management. The Tree House is a secluded space for reading and work. The Shelter is the estate's building for outdoor life: e-bikes, surfboards and sports equipment, with room for residents to store their own gear; a small orchard sits just above it. Outside, there is a padel court with night lighting, and a natural lake at the edge of the property for swimming.

Services follow the same logic of quiet sufficiency. Two permanent members of staff live on the estate in a dedicated dwelling: one covering reception and restauration — welcome, arrivals and departures, rental requests, complementary services — and one covering maintenance and estate management, from grounds and outdoor spaces to common equipment. Everything else is outsourced to specialised providers: pool maintenance, gardening and tree care, cleaning, linen, catering on request, and accounting and administration, with extra staff covering the resident team's days off and holidays. The stated goal is a light, efficient management model with controlled running costs; the exact service charges are [Information required from developer].

Owners are gathered in an owners' club that can define and evolve the operating rules and the organisation of these common services, so the service model belongs to the nine households it serves rather than being imposed on them.

Why it matters: shared amenities of this range — spa, restaurant, sports, work and social spaces spread across 12 hectares — are usually the preserve of large resorts. Delivering them to nine villas, with resident staff, is what distinguishes living at Apaulinha from owning an isolated country house.