By Contributor,Zoë Dare Hall
Copyright forbes
Puerto Banús, Marbella—among southern Spain’s most magnetic marinas.
©2012 Caron Badkin/Shutterstock
In its 60-year or so trajectory from unassuming southern Spanish fishing village to beach retreat for the rich and famous (though it’s not compulsory to be the Ferrari-flashing type that the resort town’s reality-TV reputation promotes), Marbella has long attracted a diversely international crowd.
Hollywood A-listers led the charge in the 1960s, followed by a Middle Eastern wave treading in the late Saudi King Fahd’s footsteps, then bling-loving Russians and golf-loving Brits in search of warm winters.
But a shift began around 15 years ago, notes Cristina Martínez at Rimontgó, the Spanish luxury real estate firm with offices in Madrid, Valencia and Jávea. “More international families chose to stay longer as semi-permanent or permanent residents. The infrastructure strengthened with five-star hotels, Michelin-starred restaurants, international schools, wellness facilities and high-end healthcare,” she says.
Now Dutch, Scandinavian and Polish buyers are entering the fray in the greatest numbers. And Marbella is entering another new era—one that’s being touted as Marbella 2.0 by the high-flying tech set who are running empires all over the world but making this Costa del Sol town their home base.
Marbella Club, established 1954, had a mid-20th-century heyday. Today it remains a five-star base for entertainers and entrepreneurs.
©Caron Badkin/Shutterstock
Whereas in the 1960s it was stars such as Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant who lent glamour to the embryonic resort, Marbella’s new power couples are start-up royalty. People like Canadian entrepreneurs Razor and Kari Suleman, whose hunt for unicorns (Razor helped the co-ownership platform Pacaso achieve such mythical status in 2021, faster than any other U.S. company) from their villa near the Golden Mile. Spotify founder Daniel Ek is a neighbor.
Cristina Pitarch, Google’s EMEA head of cyber security, recently named one of Spain’s top 20 business leaders with global influence, has also made her home here. Pitarch and her husband, fintech whizz Bob van Winden, now involved with a San Francisco-based venture capital firm, reside in a gilded enclave between the towering peaks of La Concha mountain and the Mediterranean Sea.
They’ve all realized that while work may take them around the world, this Spanish town—which reliably provides around 320 sunny days a year—offers the ideal family lifestyle package. “Marbella for me is the best location in Europe to live. You are really immersed in Andalucían history, food and quality of life. You can walk to the beach, lunch in Cipriani, dine in Nobu and fly to Miami,” comments British entrepreneur Daniel Shamoon, whose worldwide hospitality empire includes Marbella’s two famous beachfront hotels, Marbella Club—where it all began for the 1950s and 60s jet-set—and Puente Romano. As a child, Shamoon’s neighbor was King Fahd. “The King bought our house from my father and turned it into his palace, so we moved next door,” he informs.
“There’s so much to fall in love with,” enthuses Kari Suleman of Marbella’s allure. “The sunshine, the sea, the healthy diets, the wellness-focused people and the community we’ve come to know. When we lived in San Francisco, we didn’t get that same feeling of community. Here feels more like a village with a global reach.”
Marbella’s new tech titans have a playground built just for them too. The Pool Marbella—a co-working office that’s about far more than hot-desking and free coffee—is a brain-storming watering hole, a super-charged incubator for investors and the inventive. “It brings together future-focused, purpose-driven people and gives them a sense of belonging,” says Kari.
Newcomers from the U.S. and Canada are pouring in. “East Coast Americans love the direct flights from Malaga to New York, but there’s also a growing trifecta: Miami, Dubai and Marbella. They’ve maybe made their money in Miami, have a business in Dubai, but love living in Marbella. That’s definitely not something you’d have seen until recently,” says The Pool’s Swedish co-founder, Christian Rasmusson.
This €15 million mountain estate is Andalucía personified—colorful, bold, sun-drenched.
The fundamentals that made Marbella popular more than half a century ago—year-round sunshine, beautiful beaches and a backdrop of glorious Andalucían countryside—remain unchanged. But the town has made a clever transition, thinks Cristina Martínez. “The glamour years gave it visibility and the reinvention years have given it credibility. Today it is one of the few Mediterranean destinations that attract not only wealth, but also talent and enterprise.”
So where do today’s ultra-high-net-worth house-hunters want to lay their laptops these days? Well you can’t beat the beach, of course, where mansions on huge private plots, shielded by high walls from passers-by on the Golden Mile’s seafront path, can command up to €60m.
The glamour years gave it visibility and the reinvention years have given it credibility. Today it is one of the few Mediterranean destinations that attract not only wealth, but also talent and enterprise.
Cristina Martínez, Rimontgó
On the last large developable beachfront plots, UNO, a new super-prime scheme, is rising among the pines. Early investors are flipping their apartments before completion, with prices around €32,000 (~$37,500) per square meter, making it one of the highest-priced new schemes in Marbella. “It’s the most exciting development here,” comments Razor Suleman, who is neither an investor nor a buyer in the project—“just a fan,” he says. “The demand is insane. The prices have gone up so much and are on par with Mayfair and Monaco.”
In Marbella, you can live for the beach or the back nine. This contemporary La Cerquilla villa splits the difference.
For buyers who prefer expansive sea views from a loftier spot in the hills, Sierra Blanca is Marbella’s most upmarket residential neighborhood. Four of its streets, including Calle Vivaldi and Calle Albinoni, feature in the 10 most expensive addresses in Spain, with average house prices of over €7 million (~$8.2 million), according to the property portal Idealista. It’s also where an enclave of ultra-high-end fashion-branded residences is emerging, with the latest—Dolce & Gabbana’s Design Hills—occupying an entire hillside.
Proximity to the water carries a premium. Seafront condos on the Costa del Sol’s Golden Mile can fetch upwards of €25,000 per square meter.
“The Golden Mile, Sierra Blanca and nearby Las Lomas are still the classic choices that will always attract people who want that iconic Marbella lifestyle close to the urban buzz and the heart of town,” says Martínez. “Nueva Andalucía is another favorite, around the golf valley, where you get privacy, views and easy access to Puerto Banús [the marina and nightlife hub] without being right in the middle of the social scene.”
New construction is filling the gaps created by rising demand for Marbella’s best addresses.
The east side of Marbella offers a different flavor again—its long, golden beaches flanked by wild, sandy dunes and dotted with beach bars that range from traditional open-air chiringuitos to Ibiza-style clubs with champagne buckets alongside four-poster daybeds. “Areas to the east such as Los Monteros, Rio Real and Elviria feel more residential, less busy, and they have the big advantage of being closer to Malaga airport, avoiding much of the heavy summer traffic,” says Martinez.
From elevated perches in Marbella’s Sierra Blanca mountain range, views can sweep across the water to the Africa’s northern coast.
She has just sold a beachfront house to an American couple in their 50s who, for her, sum up what high-net-worth clients want now from Marbella. “They’re East Coasters whose kids are at university. He’s the CEO of a major American company and they are buying initially as a holiday residence but with the clear intention of spending more time in Marbella as his professional trajectory allows,” says Martínez.
Marbella may have made its name from bling—and it’s still there to be seen in Puerto Banús, a precocious stage for those who like to pose on superyachts or in flash cars. But it’s not where Marbella’s newest wealthy incomers aspire to live.
“The ‘bling’ side of Marbella helped put Marbella on the map but it’s no longer the main driver of purchases,” says Martínez. “The city has successfully reoriented itself, away from an era defined purely by ostentation to something more sustainable and appealing to a highly educated international profile.”
Plenty of overseas buyers are lining up, ready to dip their toes in the water. For Marbella’s new wave of start-up founders, that’s as likely to mean in The Pool as in its shimmering sea.
Rimontgó is a founding partner of Forbes Global Properties, the invitation-only network of top-tier independent brokerages worldwide and the exclusive real-estate partner of Forbes.
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