The E-MAGAZINE of Marbella Hills Homes

Although we may be facing another enforced period of lockdown in most parts of the world, which inevitably restricts free movement across country borders, demand remains strong for the Marbella way of life and some parts of Marbella have proved to be almost Covid-proof.

Design trends flow like ebb and tide, forever evolving and refining. The latest one began some ten years ago and returned familiar clean, white tones to the Costa del Sol – albeit now with the sleek, right-angled geometry of modern/futuristic architecture. Now, almost a decade on and the starkness of modern minimalism has softened somewhat in Marbella homes, with less focus on glass, rectangular layouts, flat roofs and lacquered finishes.

People from across Europe and beyond are drawn to buy homes on the Costa del Sol and even move here permanently, but when they think of Marbella it is usually the beachfront areas, leafy residential suburbs surrounding golf courses and private country clubs they picture. For this reason, the bulk of those who buy property in Marbella look for apartments, penthouses and villas for sale in Sierra Blanca, Nueva Andalucía, La Quinta, Los Arqueros, Guadalmina, El Madroñal, La Zagaleta, Río Real, Los Monteros and similar residential resort areas of the Costa del Sol.

Marbella is an area rich in beautiful scenery – from beachside sea vistas across the Mediterranean to mountain scenery, golf views, verdant suburbs with lush subtropical gardens and also hillside locations that take in the entire coastal region and trace the shoreline all the way to Gibraltar and North Africa – so how could views not be a major part of life on the Costa del Sol?

The property market, like all consumer-based ones, is always evolving and incorporating new technologies, trends and social reactions. Not surprisingly, the Covid situation has had a big impact too, and it is being reflected in the latest home designs, especially in Marbella.

Some of the earliest properties built in Marbella belonged to the school of modern architecture. In fact, with their sleek white lines and single-storey dimensions, these villas built as long ago as the 1950s and 1960s have stood the test of time and continue to look fresh today. In the years that followed, architects favoured a more traditional Mediterranean style that celebrated the rich variety of decorative detail in this region, though most homes continued to be white. This changed in the 1990s, when famous architect Melvin Villaroël introduced the earthy terracotta tones inspired by southern Morocco that would later become so popular on the Costa del Sol.