Teba Siles | · 22 min. read
La Zagaleta is the most exclusive urbanization in Spain and one of the most luxurious in Europe. It is located in the hills of the beautiful village of Benahavís, in a privileged enclave: between the Costa del Sol and the Sierra de las Nieves. La Zagaleta is integrated in the environment of a Country Club within an old hunting reserve with 900 hectares of valleys, wooded hills between the sea and the mountains and only 10 minutes from the Costa del Sol.
Today La Zagaleta offers 250 homes with the best designs and qualities ranging in size from 3,000 to 10,000 square meters. In total, La Zagaleta will have a development of 420 luxury homes when completed.
Homeowners at La Zagaleta include international executives from leading companies around the world. Successful professionals looking for an exclusive place with a low or no exposure profile and who come from the United Kingdom (28%), Germany (12%), Switzerland, Denmark and northern Europe (18%), and 29% who are divided between Spanish, Arab and other nationalities.
For five years - and especially during the pandemic - there has been a generational change. Now they are young people aged 35-40, professionally related to technology, renewables, systems, energy and innovation. Their purchasing decision is determined by the quality of the sports and leisure offer on the one hand and by the link with nature and environmental sensitivity on the other. They're looking for houses with a minimum of four bedrooms (there are villas with up to 8 rooms), a good garage, and a space in the middle of nature where they can enjoy with their family.
Among the owners who have shared that they live here are Hans Snook, founder of Orange Telecom; Lord Stanley Fink, former treasurer of the British Conservative Party or the programmer and writer David Heinemeier Hansson. In order to be able to live here, the investment must represent 10% of their fortune. Maintaining the residence usually costs about 70,000 euros per year and the community fee is around 5,000 euros.
The history of La Zagaleta dates back to the middle of the 20th century. The land on which this luxurious urbanization is located was originally a hunting estate, owned by Adnan Khashoggi, a well-known Saudi businessman. In the 1980s, Khashoggi, attracted by the wild beauty and strategic location of the site, decided to convert this vast expanse of land into his personal residence, which was seized after his indictment in the US and today houses the Clubhouse. The properties were auctioned and awarded to a group of Spanish, Swiss, German and American investors.
In 1991 a group of investors, led by banker Enrique Perez Flores, acquired the property and began to lay out the current Zagaleta. The initial plan was to build 3,000 homes, but La Zagaleta founder Enrique Pérez Flores (until his death in 2020 Honorary President of the company) proposed only 420. This figure guaranteed a low building density, thanks to which today the houses are surrounded by abundant and well-kept vegetation, with views of the Mediterranean, Africa, Gibraltar, lakes and the two 18-hole golf courses each.
Since its creation, La Zagaleta has always promoted very low-density luxury residential development together with sports activities such as golf, horse riding and other activities related to nature and environmental sustainability, i.e. high-end lifestyle projects for Ultra-High-Net-Worth Individual (UHNWI) families in Europe. La Zagaleta has managed over the decades to consolidate itself as a heaven of luxury and exclusivity.
La Zagaleta belongs to the municipality of Benahavis, one of the most sought-after municipalities in Malaga to live in. La Zagaleta is conveniently located close to Marbella, just a short drive from its amenities and beaches.
The easiest way to access La Zagaleta is via the A-397 in the direction of Ronda. This way, the 2 entrances to La Zagaleta can be easily accessed: the North entrance and the South entrance. The South entrance is the closest to everything and is located west of the A-397. It should be noted that only residents can access the development via the South entrance. The North entrance is located 4km further up the A-397, which serves as the main entry point for residents, visitors and workers. This is where security personnel identify all those entering the development who do not reside there or have no prior notice of entry.
If you are arriving from abroad and landing at Malaga AGP Airport, the journey takes 45 minutes via the AP-7 motorway, which is 71.8km. If you are flying from Gibraltar Airport, the journey takes one hour via the main coastal road, which is 72.4km.
La Zagaleta Service, a 24-hour personalized service center where 120 multilingual professionals work to satisfy any request. It offers an à la carte service ranging from a last minute restaurant reservation to a private charter or comprehensive property management.
La Zagaleta Service Management is a concierge and hospitality service that offers residents house and garden maintenance, cleaning, shopping and home delivery services. In addition, they offer personal services such as language classes, transportation and guest management, accounting, tax and legal services for businesses and additional personalized services. Private chefs and catering support staff are also available on request.
This paid-for concierge service that provides La Zagaleta residents with all kinds of services beyond house maintenance, gardening, cleaning and shopping. There is a multidisciplinary, multilingual team that attends to residents and their requests, and ensures, for example, that the houses are not only in perfect condition when they arrive, but also that the fridge is stocked with the food and drinks the owner wants.
All of these management services are located near the north entrance.
In addition, residents can enjoy their private helipad. The heliport is available for private arrivals flying from Malaga airport, which is only 70 km away and has excellent connections to Europe. In addition, there is collaboration with local hospitals in case of emergency. The hospitals can send a helicopter to assist you as quickly as possible and take you to the nearest hospital, which is less than 15 km away.
La Zagaleta have 24/7 security and controlled access at two entry points, where proof of identification is required. The community itself is cordoned off by fences with cameras, ensuring that absolutely nothing and no one can enter without permission. Security also constantly monitors the grounds via CCTV and by car.
Regarding emergency control, La Zagaleta has the most comprehensive private emergency protection means on the entire Costa del Sol. It has drawn up a self-protection manual that thoroughly includes emergency and evacuation protocols and plans, all approved by civil protection and periodically reviewed.
There are different alert levels, with two categories of evacuation: that ordered by emergency management and the evacuation ordered by the La Zagaleta security team, based on the assessment of the risk that takes place. Part of the protocol details the immediate evacuation of all residents of the development by coach and emergency accommodation in hotels in the area.
They have two fire-fighting vehicles of its own, a pickup and a trailer, both with a total capacity of one thousand litres. To this figure are added hydrants distributed throughout the La Zagaleta estate, kilometres of hoses and, above all, the use of the two lakes on the golf courses and the swimming pools in the houses.
Its heliport is always available for use by the State Security Forces and Corps, firefighters, Civil Protection and the Red Cross, and it also has a helicopter permanently based in La Zagaleta: an Agusta Westland AW109 with a range of 850 km.
The members have personal protective equipment (PPE): harnesses and restraint belts for working at height, extrication tools, blinders, saws, GoPro cameras on vests, and equipment that includes, among others, submersible pumps to quickly extract water from pools, expulsion pumps, retardant agents and extinguishing foams to combat any emergency, whatever it may be.
The La Zagaleta security team has very strict discipline and continuous training: one of its members has been a professional brigade member and is in charge of training the team from May to October every weekend.
With its 5,000 square meters of interior space and a long list of La Zagaleta services, the Old Course Clubhouse is the social hub, an elegant and sophisticated place where residents dine, meet, organize events and enjoy exquisite service in a select environment.
The Clubhouse offers an excellent restaurant with panoramic terrace, a series of bars and lounges, a magnificent lounge for special events, meeting rooms and, of course, first class services with equipment, buggy and caddy at your disposal.
It is the ideal place to relax and enjoy. The restaurant and terraces offer a cozy atmosphere and breathtaking panoramic views. Another special service offered is the use of a fully equipped party pavilion for private events as well as a discotheque, also for private events, games room, billiard room, swimming pool, sauna, tennis and paddle courts and even a store.
Some foreign inhabitants of La Zagaleta are populating the urbanizations, golf courses and mountains surrounding this luxury urbanization in Benahavís. They don't have Bentleys or Swiss bank accounts. In fact, they are on all fours and have beautiful antlers on their heads: they are the descendants of the old hunting grounds of La Zagaleta, deer, fallow deer and mouflon from Central Europe, who are not content to live among the mansions, as they are also colonizing many kilometers around.
More than 30 years have passed since the Junta de Andalucía closed the old hunting reserve that the businessman Adnan Khashoggi once established on the site where the urbanization of La Zagaleta now stands. Hunting activities on developable land were not compatible. Therefore, the preserve closed but the animals, deer, mouflon and fallow deer brought from Central Europe, stayed. In these three decades they have not stopped reproducing, increasing their population until they exceed the limits of the fence that surrounds La Zagaleta.
Two of the best experts on this expansive phenomenon are Jesús Duarte, PhD in Biology, and Diego Zumaquero, agronomist engineer, who have prepared a report, Expansion of the deer in an urban environment of the Costa del Sol, together with Pablo J. Rubio, Daniel Gómez and Miguel Ángel Farfán. This study shows that the deer population in La Zagaleta continues to grow and expand, “already occupying areas of Estepona to the west and part of the Sierra de las Nieves to the east and north,” explains Duarte.
These environmental experts gridded an area of 10 kilometers radius with La Zagaleta as the source nucleus. They cleaned the plots into which they divided the land to be sampled of droppings and then left them exposed for 60 days before returning to count the defecations. As a result, they were able to establish a density of between 20 and 30 deer per square kilometer. A figure that they believe will continue to grow in the future.
“For years they have been going out, colonizing many kilometers to the west, already in the municipality of Estepona”, explains Duarte, who clarifies that the deer have shown a great fondness for a territory where urban areas, forests and golf courses abound. This is a habitat with many natural and artificial resources, “and even more so if people feed them as if they were an attraction”. To the east, where the Sierra de las Nieves is located, there has been much less colonization for a simple reason: poaching has abruptly put an end to the expansion of the “zagaleteño” deer.
With 36 Parkland holes, the Old and New courses of La Zagaleta are located in a privileged enclave of Mediterranean Forest from where you can contemplate the Alboran Sea, Africa and Gibraltar. Both courses offer a dynamic design of doglegs to both sides, where it is essential to put the ball in the fairway from the tee and then face medium to short distance shots to small but moving greens. They are not long courses but very technical where the risk/reward strategy is present in many of its holes.
Designed in 1991 and inaugurated at the end of 1993, the Old private golf course is undoubtedly one of the major attractions of La Zagaleta created and designed by the Californian architect Bradford Benz. In designing a unique 18-hole golf course, absolute priority has been given to the preservation of the natural environment and beauty. The course has four clearly marked tees per hole, making it easy for players to choose the desired degree of difficulty. In this way, you can choose to spend a pleasant day of golf or accept a challenge adapted to the most experienced players.
Zagaleta New Course was designed in 2005 by “Gaunt&Marnoch” taking care of every detail to create an entertainment space that merges with nature in an 18-hole course with beautiful obstacles and doglegs. The existing fauna in this part of the estate, where you can see fallow deer and deer, coupled with stunning views, make it a unique experience.
Until 2021, it maintained the same privacy policy as the New Course.
Currently, it offers the opportunity for a limited number of players to use it in tee times every 15 minutes, but only for 3 hours a day and with a limited number of days per year. This allows to preserve the exclusivity and low density that has always characterized the Zagaleta Country Club.
La Zagaleta Equestrian Club
The riding club offers purebred Arabian and Spanish horses, along with Welsh ponies and Farabella horses for the youngsters, offering all the services for horse riding. A total of 23 stables and four riding arenas: two for training, one for “dressage” and one for “free time”.
Members can use the Club's horses or their own.
The facilities include offices, changing rooms, ladies' and men's toilets, tack rooms and two lounges, both with fireplaces. The stables are cleaned every day from Monday - Sunday including national holidays.
The horses are roped twice a week and free exercise in the riding arena once a week. There is also a horse walker available. If you have not yet discovered this fascinating sport, La Zagaleta has a private instructor to help you in your first steps into the world of horses.
Cycling and Hiking
With three well-defined hiking and mountain biking trails, each about 7 kilometers long, La Zagaleta Country Club offers its members the chance to spend a great day in the mountains enjoying the wonderful views and the flora and fauna that surrounds this private property.
Tennis and Paddle Tennis
La Zagaleta Country Club has two tennis courts, one fast and one clay court and a paddle tennis court, everything that lovers of these racquet sports need to practice their favorite sport surrounded by breathtaking nature.
Benahavís is a white Malaga village located in the Sierra de las Nieves and only a few minutes from the coast, has earned a reputation not only for its natural beauty, but also as one of the main gastronomic destinations on the Costa del Sol. La Zagaleta is located within the municipality of Benahavís and in just a few minutes you can enjoy a good meal in some of the magnificent restaurants of this white village.
The gastronomic offer of Benahavís is wide, with a great variety of restaurants and cafeterias that satisfy the most demanding palates. Among the most outstanding establishments is Restaurante El Cordero, which delights visitors with traditional Spanish dishes and local specialties. Lamb, as its name suggests, is the star of the house, slow-cooked and served with fresh regional garnishes. In addition, its terrace offers spectacular views of the valley, making every meal an unforgettable experience.
Another must-visit restaurant is Amanhavis, a cozy space known for its gourmet cuisine. This restaurant is committed to the use of local and fresh ingredients, with a menu that changes daily depending on seasonal products. Its tasting menu is an ideal option for those who wish to explore a variety of flavors in a single visit. Amanhavis' rustic yet elegant ambiance makes it a perfect place for an intimate dinner or a special celebration.
For those who prefer a more relaxed experience, Los Abanicos is one of the most popular restaurants. Through its traditional and homemade cuisine, you can taste authentic delicacies of the regional gastronomy, with some international touches. Among its menu there is no lack of suckling pig or lamb, as well as fresh fish or homemade desserts. Abundant portions and accompanied by varied garnishes. Delicious hors d'oeuvres. Live an unforgettable gastronomic experience, you will feel at home.
As for cafes, Café de Ronda is a charming place to enjoy a good coffee or an afternoon snack. With a cozy atmosphere and rustic decor, it is the perfect place to rest after exploring the town. Not only do they serve high quality coffee, but they also offer a wide variety of homemade pastries and tapas.
La Terraza by Hotel Benahavís is another recommended stop to enjoy a drink overlooking the mountain scenery. Ideal for both breakfast and relaxing at the end of the day, its quiet location appeals to those looking for a more exclusive atmosphere.
This excursion starts just half an hour drive from the entrance to La Zagaleta. The Route of the Pinsapos is one of the most spectacular circular excursions that can be done in the province of Malaga. It allows to know the heart of the Sierra de las Nieves, to pass by some of the highest peaks of the province and to know the oldest forests of pinsapos of the south peninsular located in the ravines of the Horn and the Animas.
To do this you have to travel by car on the A-397 Ronda-San Pedro de Alcántara road, between kilometer points 13 and 14 is the entrance to the Park. Take direction to the Área Recreatuiva de los Quejigales during several kilometers of track without taking any detour to the right.
After leaving the car in the Recreational Area (with taps, toilets and picnic area) you have to cross the stream of Carboneras by a small bridge heading south, crossing a pine forest after which the ravine of the Horn awaits us. The pinsapos soon make an appearance and will accompany us for almost the entire route of this ravine.
In a short time we will be immersed in one of the most beautiful pinsapares of the Sierra. The path, without possible loss, is gaining height, and due to the wonderful scenery, it is likely that we do not realize that we will ascend about 500 meters.
In an hour (2 hours with children), we will have left the Cañada and taking the path to our left towards the antenna we will arrive at the Puerto de los Pilones, once there we can see the Torrecilla (1,919 m.) in front of us.
We will continue the marked path, leaving the antenna to our left. By the way, the track that reaches the antenna could take us back to the Cortijo de los Quejigales in 20 minutes without crossing the Cañada.
We will continue the path passing by magnificent specimens of mountain gall oaks and in less than 2 kilometers we will find a snow well rehabilitated by the Consejería de Medio Ambiente. We will go down to the sinkhole where the well is located, and after taking some photos, we will leave the sinkhole on the opposite side to the one we entered.
Once there we will easily see, below us, the Cañada de las Ánimas. To reach its head the path descends diagonally to its left end. Arrived at this point the path divides in two, to the left it returns to the Cañada del Cuerno in its high part, passing by the nearby cañada de Enmedio and crossing a place of great beauty (area of torcas known as the Riscales de la Zorrera), and to the right it enters the Cañada de las Ánimas, without a doubt the best conserved Cañada of the Sierra de las Nieves.
Once in the Cañada, we can only follow the well-marked path and enjoy the breathtaking beauty of the place. At the end of the gully we will take the path to the left. In about 4 kilometers we will be back in the Cortijo de los Quejigales, completing one of the most spectacular routes that can be done in Andalusia.
La Zagaleta is one of the most exclusive gated communities in Europe. It currently has 250 homes built on a plot with a capacity for 420 homes. The plan of the owners of La Zagaleta is to build 10 mansions every year. Year after year. So the future is guaranteed for those who want to invest and buy a home in this privileged enclave.
The hallmark of the project from the start was to offer the maximum possible privacy to its future clients, among whom is the “who’s who” of European business and finance, as well as an extensive development based exclusively on large single-family villas, with a complete absence of high-rise buildings, or on grouped or multi-family homes.
La Zagaleta’s business model offers the possibility of acquiring the land, or villas already built by La Zagaleta itself, ready to move into, which are fitted out to the buyer’s specifications. It also has the majority of the exclusive mandates of the secondary market for finished homes, villas that we renovate by adapting architecturally and technologically to the highest levels of the market, and which are available from 3 million euros.
The prices of homes in La Zagaleta range from 5 to 25 million euros, on plots ranging from 3,000 to 10,000 m². To be able to live there, the investment must represent 10% of the buyer's fortune. Maintaining the residence usually costs around 70,000 euros per year and the community fee is around 5,000 euros.
Land prices start at just under €1,200,000 and can reach €13,500,000 or more. The value comes mainly from the views, the orientation and the final flat garden, not just the price per m². The cheapest villas for sale sell for €4,500,000; the most expensive are valued at over €30,000,000. The average value of a property in La Zagaleta would be around 10.000.000 €. There are many properties for between 10.000.000 € and 15.000.000 €, but there are not many for sale at the moment. Currently, the price range is between €4,500,000 and €34,000,000.
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