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.
Denne historien er fra December 25, 2019-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra December 25, 2019-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
