Going east on the Algarve to scheme with a difference

Portugal Holiday Homes: A village-style development half-an-hour from Faro airport is being built  on the edge of a real fishing village in the eastern Algarve. Frances O'Rourke reports

It's a sunny spring day in April. Birds chatter, there's a buzz of insects in a hilly orchard thick with almond trees. Two tethered sheep look on impassively as our small group makes its way through the pastoral scene. It's rural, quiet, pretty.

And soon it will be cleared, to make way for O Pomar (Portuguese for orchard), a new townhouse and apartment development a short walk from the Mediterranean on the edge of Cabanas, a village in the eastern Algarve.

The Algarve has been consistently popular with Irish buyers, from the early days of timeshare villas through to the apartments and villas in one of the luxury gated quintas with golf courses and the beach on your doorstep. The combination of sun, sea and hot and cold running golf courses - there seems to be one at every turn of the road - has proved a winner.

Irish tourists are familiar with the cheap and cheerful resorts around Albufeira, and many know the luxury golf resorts close to upscale Vilamoura, with its wide beaches and lively marina. (Indeed, many of the O Pomar directors were directly involved in developing the Algarve when they worked for McInerneys, one of the first Irish companies to come to the area in the 1980s.)

But the eastern Algarve has remained relatively undeveloped up until now and will appeal to buyers who are looking for somewhere a little more traditional with a real Portuguese flavour.

Cabanas de Tavira, where O Pomar will be built, is about half an hour's drive from Faro airport, 20kms from the Spanish border, and about an hour's drive from Seville. (The Spanish border is only about a 15 minute drive from Cabanas, across a Calatrava-style soaring bridge.)

A single track railway - with a station - runs directly behind the orchard site, going from the border to Faro, from where you could catch a connection to Lisbon.

The road from Faro to Cabanas takes you past Tavira, a small and charming old town on the River Gilao; Cabanas is just a five minute drive from here.

The seafront of Cabanas is still recognisable as a fishing village, although several major apartment developments have recently been built there; the centre of the village, 15 minutes' walk from the seafront, remains largely traditional.

O Pomar, a low-rise development of two to four-bedroom apartments ranging in price from €210,000 to €460,000 and three-bed townhouses from €315,000 to €395,000, will be different from both the lush gated villa complexes and some standard apartment blocks to be found in the area.

Developer Newlyn Portugal - a subsidiary of Irish-owned Newlyn Group - is aiming to create a village-style scheme which will appeal particularly to young families.

The development will have a central plaza with shops and cafés and convenience stores (where you can buy fresh bread in the morning), children's play areas and a number of communal but no individual swimming pools.

It is about half a mile from the O Pomar site to the Cabanas' seafront, from where you take a short boat ride across a lagoon to miles of unspoilt beach. Newlyn plans to have a boat service of its own for O Pomar.

(There's also a long stretch of beautiful sandy beach a short drive away called Praia Verde, with a tasty seafood restaurant, Pezinhos N'areia.)

Quinta da Ria and Quinta de Cima golf courses are very nearby, which George McGarry, Newlyn director, says will be a bonus for investors who want to rent out their property. Green fees are around €60 for both courses, but Newlyn is negotiating preferential rates and starting times for O Pomar residents.

In all, there will be 208 two to four-bedroom apartments and penthouses of 87-166sq m (936-1,786sq ft) and 44 122-170sq m (1,313-1,829sq ft) three-bedroom townhouses in the development. Most of the three-storey buildings will have just five units in them.

All units will have generous balconies or terraces, some nearly as big as apartments - they can range from 18.41-151.38sq m (197-1,629sq ft). Units will have fully equipped kitchens, air conditioning units in lounges, and Jacuzzis as an optional extra in penthouses and townhouses.

Work on the site begins this summer, building work at the end of the year: the first phase of the development is due to be ready by Easter/summer 2008.

This is Newlyn Portugal's second residential development on the Algarve, and it still has a number of apartments for sale from €340,000 to €600,000 in its upmarket Victoria Boulevard development at Jardins Victoria in Vilamoura.

The O Pomar development will go on sale from plans in the Westbury Hotel, Dublin 2 on May 6th and 7th