Champion chalets in Olympic ski village

Italy: from €370,000: A new luxury village resort in the Italian Alps, with chalets, hotel and spa, has been developed by an Irish consortium. Jack Fagan went to look at the homes, which go on sale later this week

A full scale village resort complete with five-star hotel and world class spa has been developed high in the Italian Alps by an Irish business consortium.

Even before an international marketing campaign is launched for Pragelato Village Resort and Spa near Turin, the hamlet has already acquired an international reputation because of its choice as one of the principal venues for the recent Winter Olympics.

Later this week a number of chalet homes are to be offered for sale and, while the village is unashamedly aimed at the top end of the market, prices are still quite affordable for many families.

One-bedroom chalets which can sleep four people are priced from €370,000 to €480,000; two-bedroom chalets and apartments to sleep six will cost from €570,000 to €650,000, while three-bedroom chalets to sleep eight will range from €950,000 to €990,000. While purchasers will have unrestricted use of their holiday homes, it is thought likely that most will make them available for rental through the hotel.

Yields on homes in the rental pool are expected to be between 4.5 and 5.5 per cent in the first three years. Those returns are based on an average rent of €3,500 a week for a chalet sleeping six people.

Sales are being handled by London estate agents Cushman & Wakefield Healey & Baker and Dublin agents Lisney.

The new homes are grouped in landscaped clusters around the hotel and village centre where a delicatessen, shops and a café will open soon.

The mainly duplex homes are considerably larger than usual and are fitted out to a high standard.

Floors are finished in either larch wood or Italian stoneware. All the furniture and fittings, down to a plasma TV screen, will be in place when purchasers move in. Individual lockers in the basement come with ski-boot warmers.

The hotel is to retain ownership of 110 of the homes while another 95 are to be sold on the international market in the coming weeks.

"This is not a secondary resort," explains Alistair Tidey, the Dublin businessman who is leading the business consortium behind the development. "It is a top class, high-level resort with its own cable car access to what is an amazing ski location."

The homes going on the market are "aimed at people who appreciate quality and are prepared to pay for it".

Tidey, along with his wife Jane and Dublin property developer Paddy Kelly, and family, are among the main players in the consortium that has already invested €85 million in the resort.

Designing and developing the exclusive resort, says Tidey, was inspired by having the right site with the right characteristics. For a start,

Pragelato is located in one of the most beautiful areas of the Piedmont region beside a medieval town and close to the border with France.

At an altitude of 1,560 metres, it is higher and generally has more snow than better known resorts such as Verbier (1,500m), St Anton (1,300m), Gstaad (1,050m) and Kitzbuhel (760m).

After two days skiing there last week, the writer puts it streets ahead of a range of resorts visited over the past decade including Lech, Lermoos and Kitzbuhel.

That may in some way be be due to the fact that the huge network of runs in the "Milky Way" attract mostly Italians and reflect the local outlook: the skiing culture is friendly and easygoing and involves a great deal of eating, drinking, chatting and sunbathing.

The undoubted appeal of Pragelato has also been strengthened by the Italian government's expenditure of €1 billion on the various resorts in the run-up to the Winter Olympics.

For the Irish promoters, the Government support came in the form of a newly-built €7 million cable car service directly from the grounds of the resort up to the main skiing area.

The hotel, run by Dublin-born Peter Stephenson, also received €4 million in contracts from the government for making the facilities available during the Olympics to the various international television channels as well as to dignitaries, including the President of Czechoslovakia and the Japanese ambassador.

Now that the Olympics are out of the way, the management is refining its various facilities and services.

The Daniella Steiner Spa is up and running and is one of the finest of its kind; a separate nursery and children's club will come in handy for couples with young children and, with no cars allowed in the resort, there will be more freedom and security for this age group.

The range of bars and restaurants is designed to suit most tastes and a private cinema will provide an interesting alternative in the evenings..

The resort has a concierge service to arrange for apartments to be cleaned or stocked with food and wine; otherwise dinner can be prepared in the hotel and delivered to apartments.

While Pragelato is primarily a winter sports resort, its alpine location next to one of Italy's eight national parks will make it equally attractive in spring and summer to walkers, paragliders,rock climbers, canoeists . . . and, of course, golfers.

Pragelato is about to set new standards for skiing in the Alps. It's goodbye to pull-out beds, ghastly dinners and the long queues for the lifts.