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Pine Cliffs Gardens
Albufeira, Portugal · Independent · Near Luxury
The last piece of Pine Cliffs to be built, and the fastest to sell: all 87 apartments in these four low blocks by the resort gate went off-plan in about three months, before ground was broken in April 2017. They opened at the end of 2018 and took Best Tourism Development at the first Expresso and SIC Notícias property awards the following June. One to three bedrooms with full kitchens, pine forest on every side, and the run of a 70-hectare estate above Praia da Falésia.
- 87 rooms
- Opened 2018
- Neighborhood: Pinhal do Concelho
About Pine Cliffs Gardens
- The Devil's Parlour, the sixth hole on the resort's nine-hole course, asks for a 197-metre carry straight across a cliff ravine, from a tee set roughly 60 metres above the Atlantic.
- Pine Cliffs was the work of Jassim Mohammed Al-Bahar, a Kuwaiti businessman who bought a hillside of bare pine forest in the mid-1980s and called the finished resort his palace. Portugal was the first country he invested in.
- The bird on the Pine Cliffs badge is the poupa, the crested hoopoe that was already living in these pine woods before the first building went up.
- What opened in August 1992 with 215 rooms and beds for 440 people now takes up to 3,000 guests at the height of summer, across 15 restaurants and bars.
History
Pine Cliffs Gardens is the youngest thing at Pine Cliffs, and it closed out thirty years of building on the estate. United Investments Portugal launched it at the end of July 2016 as the final phase of the resort's development: four blocks holding 87 apartments in one, two and three-bedroom layouts, on a pocket of garden and pine woodland just inside the resort entrance. The whole release sold off-plan in roughly three months, before construction started in April 2017, which was a record pace for the Algarve at the time. Prices opened around 505,000 euros and the project carried a budget of about 20 million euros. Engexpor handled project and construction management, along with the roads, infrastructure and landscaping around it.
The buildings were finished in 2018 and inaugurated at the end of that year, deliberately matching the resort's existing look rather than breaking from it: contemporary lines, Algarve materials, low profiles under the pines. In June 2019 the development won Best Development in the Tourism category at the first Expresso and SIC Notícias real estate awards, judged in Lisbon.
Owners can place their apartments into the resort's rental programme, which is how the Gardens reach travellers who are not homeowners. Guests get the same access to the estate as anyone staying in the hotel itself: the nine-hole golf course, the Serenity Spa, the restaurants and bars, the kids' club, and the lift down the cliff to the beach.
The setting
Pine Cliffs sits at Pinhal do Concelho, above the western end of Praia da Falésia, and you reach it not off the N125 but along the Estrada das Açoteias toward Olhos de Água, through an entrance arch so discreet that the scale of the place only registers once you are inside. The Gardens are the first thing past that arch. More than 70 hectares of pine forest spread out beyond, arranged roughly a kilometre square, with the red and ochre cliffs dropping to six kilometres of sand. A panoramic lift and a wooden walkway carry you down to the beach; from there it is a walk east along the water to the old fishing village of Olhos de Água, where freshwater springs surface among the rocks at low tide, or five kilometres west along the sand to Vilamoura marina. Albufeira is about seven kilometres away by road.
Restaurants and bars
- Piri Piri Steakhouse — Restaurant
Experiences
- Golf — Golf offered at Pine Cliffs Resort
- Professional Football Center / Estima Sports Football Academy — Football academy at Pine Cliffs Resort
- Annabel Croft Tennis Academy — Tennis academy at Pine Cliffs Resort
- Annabel Croft Padel Academy — Padel academy at Pine Cliffs Resort
- Beach & Water Sports — Beach and water sports offered at Pine Cliffs Resort
Amenities
- Bottled water, complimentary
- Wireless internet, complimentary
- Coffee/tea maker
- Housekeeping
- Bespoke concierge services
- Room Service
- Cozinha equipada
- Água engarrafada, grátis
- Internet sem fios, grátis
- Ar condicionado
- Cofre no quarto mediante pagamento de uma taxa
- Serviços hoteleiros integrados
- Serviço de Concierge
- Serviço de quarto 24 horas
- Segurança 24 horas
- Limpeza
Open Pine Cliffs Gardens in the atlas for live weekend rates, photos, and the full folio.
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