Ibiza
What sort of service would you like at the villa?’ I pondered a while, looking out of the car window as we drove from the airport past orange and lemon groves and asked Ulf, the manager, what he meant. ‘Well, do you want to have your napkin replaced before it hits the floor or something more discreet?’
Isla Sa Ferradura sits alone on a tiny island just off the coast of Ibiza. It is the epitome of exclusivity: a billionaire’s holiday heaven.
We crossed from the mainland via a thin spit of golden sand that links the party capital of the world with this island of quiet charm. Behind a vast wooden gate, we found a Garden of Eden, filled with ancient olive trees, oleander, great drifts of chrysanthemum and trailing rosemary, as well as mastic trees, Aleppo pines and bird of paradise plants.
My two sons and their friends had been singing songs from Hamilton in the car and, by the time we had been shown to our rooms, the music was playing on speakers all around the island. The attention to detail was astonishing. The villa itself, designed by local architect Jaime Romano, is in the simple Balearic style. The oak floor throughout, polished to oyster sheen, is the perfect dancing partner to the shimmering light coming through the vast windows.
Isla Sa Ferradura was voted last year as Europe’s best private villa. It holds 12 guests; there are 23 members of staff. Further accommodation is available for larger parties —footballer Cesc Fabregas had his wedding here and Lionel Messi has stayed.
Nothing is impossible to arrange; no detail is ignored. Even the lawn, despite the wind and sea salt, is like a feather mattress, nurtured with Cynodon dactylon and Festuca Arundinaria grass seeds. There are two swimming pools, a gym and a spa built into the rock with agapanthus growing on the roof.
この記事は Country Life UK の December 25, 2019 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は Country Life UK の December 25, 2019 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
Give it some stick
Galloping through the imagination, competitive hobby-horsing is a gymnastic sport on the rise in Britain, discovers Sybilla Hart
Paper escapes
Steven King selects his best travel books of 2024
For love, not money
This year may have marked the end of brag-art’, bought merely to show off one’s wealth. It’s time for a return to looking for connoisseurship, beauty and taste
Mary I: more bruised than bloody
Cast as a sanguinary tyrant, our first Queen Regnant may not deserve her brutal reputation, believes Geoffrey Munn
A love supreme
Art brought together 19th-century Norwich couple Joseph and Emily Stannard, who shared a passion for painting, but their destiny would be dramatically different
Private views
One of the best ways-often the only way-to visit the finest privately owned gardens in the country is by joining an exclusive tour. Non Morris does exactly that
Shhhhhh...
THERE is great delight to be had poring over the front pages of COUNTRY LIFE each week, dreaming of what life would be like in a Scottish castle (so reasonably priced, but do bear in mind the midges) or a townhouse in London’s Eaton Square (worth a king’s ransom, but, oh dear, the traffic) or perhaps that cottage in the Cotswolds (if you don’t mind standing next to Hollywood A-listers in the queue at Daylesford). The estate agent’s particulars will give you details of acreage, proximity to schools and railway stations, but never—no, never—an indication of noise levels.
Mission impossible
Rubble and ruin were all that remained of the early-19th-century Villa Frere and its gardens, planted by the English diplomat John Hookham Frere, until a group of dedicated volunteers came to its rescue. Josephine Tyndale-Biscoe tells the story
When a perfect storm hits
Weather, wars, elections and financial uncertainty all conspired against high-end house sales this year, but there were still some spectacular deals
Give the dog a bone
Man's best friend still needs to eat like its Lupus forebears, believes Jonathan Self, when it's not guarding food, greeting us or destroying our upholstery, of course