“An appreciation of the Quinta do Lago way of life is fundamental to our success”

Their relationship with the estate is a long one

As a young partner in the firm of Fraser Design International, Vaughan initially visited the site with Quinta do Lago’s visionary creator, Andre Jordan, just ten years after the developer first discovered the lagoon and saw the area’s wonderful potential. One of many talented designers who have worked on the estate during its lifetime, Vaughan worked on the site’s masterplans and is still working in Quinta do Lago today, surrounded by his beautiful designs, including many luxury private villas, the Lakeside Village, as well as São Lourenço apartments and the elegant Hotel Quinta do Lago.

Many of Vaughan’s projects are managed by his wife, Wendy, as part of her Property Management Company.

“There is a harmony with what we do”, explains Wendy. “Vaughan creates the home and I try to make sure it works as one, once the owner moves in. Although not all of the properties I manage have been designed by Vaughan, many of them have been and I am able to bring my knowledge of that building, from its first designs to its life today, to my clients. Quite often if the house is sold I continue the management with the new owners because of this reason.

“I also keep in touch with many of my private clients”, adds Vaughan. “Designing and building a house is a long project, it is hard not to become friends over this period. In addition to that, many clients return to me requesting additions to their villas. This is nearly always because they have become grandparents and need a bit of extra space to accommodate visits from their growing family”.

Understanding the needs of a family is central to the thinking of Wendy and Vaughan, who have raised their own family in Portugal. The couple, who are originally from Wales, moved to Quinta do Lago from London during the 1980s. The move made sense. As one of the principle architects to the resort, Vaughan needed to spend increasing amounts of time in the Algarve. Wendy joined him and their two sons, Tod (17) and Iuean (15), were born a little after.

“Quinta do Lago is a wonderful place to live”, enthuses Vaughan. “Winter is like spring in the UK. Of course there are days of rain, but we also have amazing, bright, blue skies. I love the almond blossom in January and I am a keen, if limited, golfer and enjoy playing all the local courses”.

Understandably, Tod and Iuean’s UK friends are pretty keen too and try to visit as often as they can, relishing the freedom of the outdoor lifestyle and the opportunities to play many different sports from golf to windsurfing.

Vaughan enjoys working with natural materials, particularly stone and wood. His eye for detail is not confined to a building’s exterior; you will find his signature finesse on everything from the kitchen floor to the master bedroom’s wardrobe doors. “We will design pretty much everything our clients want us to. The only areas we don’t tend to look at are the furniture and fabrics”, he confesses.

Vaughan’s practice, Fraser & Davies Limitada, draws on a team with international expertise, hailing from Portugal, Venezuela, Greece and, of course, Wales. Their knowledge of the region and their relationships with local suppliers, from project management to builders and artisans is consummate.

Wendy’s service is expansive. Wendy Davies Lda employs a team of administrative staff, maids and maintenance engineers and organises pool and garden maintenance. Wendy’s own expertise is in managing these services and in adding her own personal touch from sourcing quality local tiles, to organising weddings and even transporting personal belongings from China! Wendy believes her brief is to support her clients’ individual needs in any way she can. Her work is recorded in each property’s log book, and may range from an annual maintenance programme of safety checks on boilers and guttering, to individual restaurant and golf course advance bookings.

If you don’t live in your villa all year round, it is reassuring to know that someone is looking after it when you are not there”, explains Wendy. “But it is more than that, too. It can be a real relief to arrive knowing that the house is warm in the winter and that there is fresh produce in the fridge, fresh flowers in the vases and all rooms are ready. When you come for a break, it’s great to know that you can relax from the moment you arrive”.

Contact Vaughan Davies under +351 289 398485or vaughan@mail.telepac.pt.

Contact Wendy under +351 289 392760or wendy.davies@mail.telepac.pt.

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All of us like to shape our living space to reflect our character and personal taste. Some are talented enough to start from scratch with a blank canvas and create a dream home using state-of-the-art technology.

But few of us are brave enough to ignore tradition, tear up the rule book and create a whole new way of living.

That is effectively what Andrew Oldfield has done. His new villa is like no house most of us will have ever seen or experienced. Indeed, it may take the rest of the world several years to catch up with some of the cutting-edge technology he has employed in his extraordinary home.

Imagine a house where the interior walls change colour to reflect your mood.Where the pool can shift from azure to pink in seconds, and where just walking into a room will turn the lights on and walking out will turn them off. This is exactly what happens in Andrew’s home, but where did he get his inspiration from?

“I’ve always been into gadgets,” explains Andrew. “We’ve have been resident in Quinta do Lago for 18 years and we’ve always used interesting lighting and sound systems. But a couple of years back I read a fascinating article about the ‘Vos Pad”.

Blueprint for future living

The Vos Pad is a state-of-the-art apartment designed as a ‘blueprint for future living’. Its most stunning feature is its lighting scheme, which is based entirely on dimmable, colour-changing Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs). The innovative use of LEDs, which are low energy and low maintenance, can create some fantastic effects including ‘washing walls’ with a spectrum of colours at the touch of a button. Each LED can have three light sources, one red, one green and one blue. Turn them on together and you have a white light but a dimming control allows you to vary the strength of each colour source, offering a spectrum of light from each fitting.

“I went to see The Vos Pad,” says Andrew, “I really liked it and decided to apply the same technology in my new villa – but where the Vos Pad has 105 light fittings I needed somewhere in the region of over 1,000 fittings!”

Now the garden, terrace, pool and interiors of the ‘Oldfield Villa’ are lit with LEDs, covering a total area of 540 sqm. The LEDs have minimum glare, generate almost no heat and have a life of some 50,000 hours. That makes them cheap to run – but not to buy.

“If the whole house was lit at once,” says Andrew, it’s the equivalent of just 16 100W bulbs. So it’s very energy efficient – but I’ve spent upwards of €150,000 on installing the system.” And that was with Andrew, an engineer by background, doing a lot of the installation work himself.

Another fascinating aspect of the Oldfields’ home is the sheer amount of glass. “I want to see the stars at night,” says Andrew. “So most of our walls and part of the roof are glass. But we have used argon filled glazing which eliminates glare, and it also helps keep the house warm in winter and cool in summer.” Andrew’s love of gadgetry also means that the blinds, curtains, air-conditioning, security gates and CCTV can be controlled via wireless touch-pads.

Contemporary nature

Despite the highly contemporary nature and style of this remarkable house, it fits in perfectly with its mainly traditionally designed neighbours.

“People come to see it and can’t quite believe what we’ve done,” says Andrew.

“On a dull morning I can make the walls the colour of sunrise, it’s fantastic”.

“Where before we may have spent one week in a month in the Algarve, we enjoy it so much that we’re spending more and more time here. And we just don’t want toleave the house.”

Andrew Oldfield’s Villa was project managed by David Banting Project Management.

“LIGHT, God’s eldest daughter,is a principal beauty in a building” – Thomas Fuller

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A builder enters the construction process when the architect has drawn up plans and the project is put out to tender, either by the architect or the project manager. There are normally 4 to 6 builders tendering for each project and, in Seamus’s experience, it is not always the cheapest bid that wins the contact.

“We are not the cheapest builders in town, but we give a fair price and we never cut corners, and we do the work as best we can,” he says, “we don’t believe in compromising to the detriment of the quality of the work, in terms of price or timescale.” He explains that he is aware of a couple of projects he has lost because the timescale he quoted for completion was longer than another builder. ” I knew that the house could not be built in the timescale the other guy quoted, and I explained that to the client,” he said, “and so it turned out. The project started, and the timescale stretched and stretched beyond the original limit. But by then the client is committed, and cannot change.”

His role in the construction process is to take the plans drawn up by the architect and bring them to life. But, of course, it is not that simple. “Clients arrived with a batch of magazine cuttings and say ‘I want that’ even though it was not on the original plans,” he says, “or ideas develop during the building process. We have to maintain a constant dialogue with the architect and the client – or, if he is not around, with the project manager – to keep everything on track.”

What are the main changes over the last five years?

Seamus is clear. “The level of competence and workmanship has improved enormously,” he says, “and there is now a much wider range of top-quality materials available for builders to use.” Styles, too, are evolving, with the market becoming more sophisticated, using decorative stonework, columns and colour to create character. Two storey villas are now the norm, partly because of the cost of land and partly, thinks Seamus, because people enjoy ‘an upstairs and a downstairs’ as they had back home.

What does he feel strongly about?

“Communication and customer service would be top of my list,” he says, “the project is a partnership between the builder and the client, and their needs and ours need to be compatible. There has to be ongoing two-way communication to avoid problems.”

What is his company philosophy?

“We are very aware that we are building something to last a very long time, and we do it as well as we possibly can”.

Costs and Timescales?

“This obviously varies enormously depending on the project and the specification,” Seamus explains,” but a typical Quinta do Lago house should be completed in around 12 months – add another 8 weeks for a basement. Costs? Around 1,000 Euros – 1,400 Euros per square metre for a typical villa in Quinta do Lago. And remember that changes to the plans can seriously impact both time and budget.”

Final words?

“If you are holding land, now is the time to build. After a hectic few years, things are calming, companies have capacity and prices are competitive. Make sure that you get your specifications right at the beginning, and keep a dialogue going with the architect and the builder throughout the process.”

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Building in Quinta do Lago and Vale do Lobo

A Project Manager looks after the interests of the client with the various professionals involved in the process of constructing a villa: architects, builders, landscapers and specialist suppliers. This is a very pro-active role and, says David Banting, a million miles away from the friend who says,

“I’ll keep an eye on things while you are away”.

It is only in recent years that people have really started to understand the value of project managers. “Sadly, lessons have been learned the hard way,” he says, “and clients who have had bad experiences now appreciate the value of having an independent professional on their side, here on the ground all the time, looking after their interests”.

Ideally, the client will appoint a project manager as soon as the plot of land has been purchased, pre- or post appointment of an architect. Clients are often out of the country for long periods of time, so the project manager assumes full day-to-day responsibility for the project with contractors. Rather than resenting the intrusion of another link in the chain, true professionals prefer to work this way. “I remember one project where the timescale was very tight,” says David, “the builder refused to take the contract unless there was a project manager on the ground, because too much time would be wasted tracking down the client and getting answers to questions that invariably crop up”. Having a project manager also relieves the builder of the responsibility of having to find sub-contractors for specialist supplies or requirements of the client. “It also means that they do not have that bit of extra profit which of course is advantageous to the client,” admits David, “but they usually recognise that it frees them up to do what they do best – building – while I sort out everything else”.

Sometimes David is called in when a project is already underway. “That is always a headache, because it means there has been a problem,” he says, “we have to try and understand what has gone before and then take it forward, which is never as easy as being with a project all the way through. Prevention is always better than cure in these things.“

He has seen various fashions come and go and says that nowadays, the trend is for clean, modern and efficient with certain luxuries included. “Home cinemas are taking over basements and garages, and saunas and steam rooms are becoming more popular for investment properties in particular. These things add value as well as giving enjoyment.”

What does he feel strongly about?

“There should be a secure contract with the builder to protect the client, with payment schedules and timescales clearly identified. We advise on such matters and liaise with the appointed lawyer accordingly”.

Advice for anyone thinking of building a villa?

“Now is a good time to build – quality contractors are available to do the work at a fair price,” he says and adds, “allow time for the paperwork to go through the local council and remember that once you have your permission, you are obliged to start work within 12 months according to current regulations”.

Costs/Timescales

“Construction periods have improved over the past ten years or so. Providing materials can be sourced and supplied on time, all should go to schedule”. “And,” he smiles, “my fees are actually less now than before, because of the competitive situation.”

Final words

“Beware people who call themselves project managers without having the relevant qualifications or experience. Take time to talk to professional people and get their recommendations – it could save a lot of money and heartache.”

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