Resources on Dream Villas

Luxury Villas

Your Dream Villa

For sure it is a beautifully designed home with many impressive and unique attributes. It should embody the inside/outside living style of the Caribbean with its own tropical lush gardens filled with palm trees, hibiscus and wild orchids -- in addition, a private water front dock, with steps to the sea, surrounded by powder white beach sand. The villa has three to five master bedrooms and one or two junior bedrooms, all with facilites en suite. There are two spectacular swimming pools--one on grade made of stone, one elevated and secluded. All master bedrooms have spectacular views of the Caribbean Sea--as do the living areas, outside verandas and master kitchen. In addition, the property has its own tennis court and stand alone car garage, wherby the entire estate is built on minimum one acre of land, all enclosed by beautiful stone walls.

This is a dream - isn't it?

Villas

A villa was originally a Roman country house built for the upper class. According to Pliny the Elder, there were two kinds of villas, the villa urbana, which was a country seat that could easily be reached from Rome (or another city) for a night or two, and the villa rustica, the farm-house estate, permanently occupied by the servants who had charge generally of the estate, which would center on the villa itself, perhaps only seasonally occupied. There were a concentration of Imperial villas near the Bay of Naples, especially on the Isle of Capri, at Monte Circeo on the coast and at Antium (Anzio). Wealthy Romans escaped the summer heat in the hills round Rome, especially around Frascati (cf Hadrian's Villa). Cicero is said to have possessed no fewer than seven villas, the oldest of which was near Arpinum, which he inherited. Pliny the Younger had three or four, of which the example near Laurentium is the best known from his descriptions.

Renaissance villas
In 14th and 15th century Italy, a 'villa' once more connoted a country house, sometimes the family seat of power like Villa Caprarola, more often designed for seasonal pleasure, usually located within easy distance of a city. The first examples of Renaissance Villa dates back to the age of Lorenzo de' Medici, and they are mostly located in the Italian region of Tuscany (the "Medici villas") such as the Villa di Poggio a Caiano by Giuliano da Sangallo (begun in 1470) or the Villa Medici in Fiesole (since 1450), probably the first villa created under the instructions of Leon Battista Alberti, who theorized in his De re aedificatoria the features of the new idea of villa. From Tuscany the idea of villa was spread again through Italy and Europe.

Excerpt of "Villa." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 21 Oct 2006, 16:21 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 27 Oct 2006 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Villa&oldid=82831165

Image from "Image:Villa_Medici_a_Fiesole_1.jpg" Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 27 Oct 2006 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Villa_Medici_a_Fiesole_1.jpg

Luxury Real Estate

Luxury real estate (American English) or luxury property (British English) describes a niche in the real estate market dealing with the highest socio-economic group of property buyers. Since real estate buyers in this group tend to own many homes, the terms vacation property and second home are inaccurate.
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Differences from ordinary real estate
In addition to simply defining and classifying a property, Luxury real estate also carries with it a much weightier responsibility for those who serve the luxury real estate buyer or seller and that is due to the buyer or seller's ability to pay for added services and their expectation for performance of service. For example, a luxury seller expects a real estate agent selling their home to advertise nationally and sometimes internationally in luxury print media whereas a non luxury seller is usually satisfied with very localized advertising and exposure in the local Multiple Listing Service. Many luxury buyers expects a real estate agent to understand how to work with attorneys, trusts and anonymity. They expect a luxury agent to have resources at their disposal when needed that non luxury buyers wouldn't expect. Frequently a luxury home buyer will take a home through multiple inspections (perhaps 10 to 15 if the property is truly an estate), whereas a non-luxury home will typically go through one inspection.

Excerpt from "Luxury real estate." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 13 Oct 2006, 18:21 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 29 Oct 2006 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Luxury_real_estate&oldid=81252028