Luxury living: waterside properties

Located on the bank of the River Vecht, between Utrecht and Amsterdam, Rijksstraatweg 24 — known as the Rupelmonde Estate — is said to be one of the most beautiful houses in the Netherlands.

The property has been home to a series of wealthy merchants in a history that can be traced back to the 1600s, the Dutch Golden Age. But the eye-catching design we see today was commissioned a century later, in 1768, by then owner Jacob Berthon, whose extensive remodelling of what was then a modest manor resulted in this elegantly proportioned, Louis XV-style house.

It has nine bedrooms, five bathrooms, a clock tower, a private jetty and nearly 14,000 acres of waterside parkland. During the 19th century it was the residence of the Dutch landscape artist Nicolaas Bastert, who painted many famous views of the meandering river outside.

Fascinatingly, another version of this house exists: in the 1990s, when a Japanese entrepreneur built a ‘Dutch city’ as a tourist destination on the island of Kyushu, complete with reconstructions of Huis ten Bosch (the royal palace in The Hague), Utrecht’s Dom Tower and Nijenrode Castle, he fashioned a second Rupelmonde as his own residence.

This palace — the last one in Tangier to remain in private hands — overlooks the Strait of Gibraltar, where the warm Mediterranean Sea meets the surging Atlantic Ocean.

It occupies more than 20,000 square feet of the city’s kasbah. Inside are 12 bedrooms and 11 bathrooms, each decorated with marble and delicate Moorish plasterwork. The property’s real majesty, however, lies outside, where several levels linked by passageways and staircases open to reveal hidden courtyards, hanging gardens, terraces with sweeping views over the Bay of Tangier and the highest swimming pool in the city, which looks across the labyrinth of alleyways that make up the ancient medina.

The palace was originally home to Sultan Moulay Ismail (1645-1727), who established extensive building programmes of mosques and gardens during his 55-year reign — the longest of any Moroccan sultan.

More recent visitors to the palace have included Jean-Paul Belmondo, Alain Delon, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Dior, Princess Al-Sabah of Kuwait, Prince Salman of Saudi Arabia, Queen Rania of Jordan and King Mohammed VI of Morocco.

In 1937, the celebrated Milanese architect Gio Ponti began work on turning a picturesque stretch of Italy’s Ligurian coast into a modernist resort for the businessman Enrico Marchesano. The building soon caught the attention of the industrialist Guido Donegani, who purchased it and tasked Ponti with a series of alterations, which were finished in 1940. Today, both the Villa Marchesano and the Villa Donegani appear in Ponti’s archives, despite being the same property.

Covering nearly six acres, the site features a private beach, lush gardens, a seawater pool and a sculpture trail with works by Giorgio de Chirico, among others.

The house — photographed for Casa Vogue in 1981 — was updated again by an English owner, who purchased it in 1993 and renamed it Villa Ego. Yet it retains the striking geometric character of Ponti’s original design.

With floor space of more than 36,000 square feet, it has 10 bedrooms, a spa with an indoor jacuzzi and pool, a caretaker’s annex and even its own three-storey museum, which was designed in 1984 by the Pritzker Prize-winning architect Kenzō Tange and once housed 25 Ferraris. Thanks to the on-site helipad, Monaco is just five minutes away.

Offered for sale for the first time in 40 years, this family house was originally built in the mid-18th century, and has been sympathetically upgraded to modern standards by its current owners.

The plot occupies the second-highest point on the island, with views across land and sea to the nearby French coastline. As well as five bedrooms in the main house, the largest of which has a sea-facing balcony, the property comes with a two-bedroom guest cottage, a 40ft-wide orangery and six acres of gardens with a large terrace and jacuzzi.

The historic mill in the grounds has existed on the site since medieval times. The top of the structure, which once held its sails, was removed in 1919, when the building was converted into a navigation mark for local fishermen. During the 1940s, the occupying German army made several further changes to the mill, converting it to a coastal artillery observation post.

Porto Rafael was established in the 1950s, when Raphael Neville, a bohemian Spanish count whose father was the Hollywood director Edgar Neville, developed a strip of barren land on the northern coast of Sardinia. The new harbour town became a popular alternative to the Aga Khan’s nearby resort, Porto Cervo — reportedly because its lack of a hotel kept the paparazzi away.

At the heart of Porto Rafael is the Ulivi Estate: two unique waterfront properties on more than six acres of land. The main residence, built in 1969, was designed by the Prix de Rome-winning architect Michele Busiri Vici, with traditional Sardinian terracotta tiles, bougainvillea borders and white stucco walls. Inside are six light and airy bedrooms and five bathrooms. The guest residence has another four en-suite rooms.

In the expansive grounds are shaded terraces and lawns, olive trees, pergolas and outdoor fireplaces. A 150ft-long stone path winds down to the estate’s private, pink-sand beach lapped by turquoise waters, which is completely secluded thanks to natural white-granite rock formations.

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