Home seekers in Dubai are being invited inside a 23-million-square-foot cocoon of wildlife and greenery in the UK.
The Dubai Six project will be up for grabs to residents and visitors here for the first time this week.
Future inhabitants of the planned houses in the Lower Mill Estate – in England's Cotswolds area – will be surrounded by animals like foxes and otters, birds like the melodious nightingale, and flowers in their swimming pools.
The privately owned estate is nested deep within a government protected forest studded with freshwater lakes and carved by rivers that is home to 3,500 species of wildlife.
“Like people, no two properties should ever be the same. Each of the six homes will be unique; tailor made for the buyer,'' said Jeremy Paxton, the owner of the Estate.
“There is a cacophony of (animal and bird) sounds when you wake up in the morning. This is a landscape developed over thousands of years – the antithesis of what happened here (in Dubai).''
Dubai used to be a sleepy coastal town a few decades ago, but a flood of oil money initially and a property boom more recently has transformed it into a busy cosmopolitan never centre. The Dubai Six, however, are a “perfect antidote to the pressure cooker (lifestyle) of this sort of intense environment'', added Paxton, 48.
The properties are being sold exclusively through the PURE International marketing company in Dubai. The half-dozen homes will cost Dh5 million on average approximately.
Last April, a country home in the Estate, the Orchid House, sold off-plan for a record Dh45 million (7.2 million UK pounds).
“This is a great investment opportunity as well, especially with the favorable [UK] sterling-dirham currency exchange rate nowadays,'' said Philip Agius, Managing Director of PURE in Middle East and Asia. “Also, there is the possibility of taking in rent through subletting, subject to certain conditions.''
“The management will not allow your neighbour to do anything that can bring down the property value, like making a mess, or erecting a giant TV tower right in front,'' added Paxton, formerly a water skiing champ and magazine publisher.
The project will be made using the “same eco friendly materials, like limestone, that have made British homes last thousands of years,'' Paxton said. That should help owners in selling the homes, which are actually leased out by the Estate for 999 years.
The Estate's privacy has attracted celebs like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, including some football stars, reported UK papers recently.
