‘It was love at first sight’, says Philippe Starck of the first time he set foot in Portugal over a decade ago.’It is one of the few places in the world where people are proud, intelligent, beautiful, honest, hardworking and above all, kind.’ Infatuated by the Alentejo region’s cork forests, lagoons, ochre cliffs, and sunsets that set ‘the ocean on fire’, the French industrial designer and architect eventually established a second home there. That personal connection now sustains A Serra, an ambitious hospitality destination planned for the hills of Serra de Grândola, near Melides.
Inside Philippe Starck’s plans for a Portuguese paradise
Developed by private real estate firm Larfa Properties – also behind Nhà Estate, the first project designed by Philippe Starck in Vietnam – A Serra encompasses a 25-suite hotel, 22 fully serviced private villas, restaurants, wellness facilities and creative studios, all gathered around a 200-hectare village. While the hotel is scheduled to open in the second quarter of 2028, the residences are now being offered off-plan, starting at six million dollars. Owners will have access to the hotel’s concierge and housekeeping services, restaurants, spa, creative programme, and shared spaces, intended to give the estate life throughout the year.
‘We need places that feel real and intentional,’ says Starck. ‘What people increasingly want are meaningful experiences, vision and a sense of adventure; something Alentejo still holds.’ A Serra answers with what he describes as a new kind of hospitality – highly specialised, thoughtful, personal. He adds: ‘We need to gather, to feel connected, safe, and supported. That’s the vision behind A Serra.’
Starck is not flying solo; while he’s dreamt up the sylvan interiors, he’s joined by a creative roster of local studios equally passionate about the surrounding landscape. Lisbon architecture studio Atelier AAVV, established by Miguel Passos de Almeida, has led the building’s planning and construction, while landscape architect Filipa Cardoso de Menezes of FC Arquitectura Paisagista has envisioned a lush paradise across the grounds. Developer Stéphane Delplancq stipulated from the early stages that ‘there could be no gesture, nothing added and superfluous’ to compete with the site’s hills, vegetation, and Atlantic horizon. A Serra should appear, Starck would agree, ‘as if it would have always existed’.
Like with the rest of Stack’s projects, take Brach Madrid or Maison Heler Metz, storytelling is as important as the technical minutiae. ‘I always start by writing a story that serves as a creative backbone,’ he explains. For A Serra, he imagined an odyssey through orange-red cork forests, rice fields and lagoons, eventually reaching a series of geometric dwellings akin to modernist sculptures. Inside, books, scores and instruments reveal the lives of an absent couple: a writer and a musician. The sole clue to their whereabouts is a note left on a desk: ‘Join me in the village, down below.’
This imagined passage became the organising principle of this modern version of an aldeia (a Portuguese village), embodying its charm and authenticity. Mineral structures sit uphill, while a timber village resides at the foot of the slope. Its small buildings will line a raised main street, leading guests and residents between a farm-to-table restaurant and vegetable garden, a grand café with a market-style shop, an art studio and a swimming pool. ‘A Serra was created as a living destination rather than a stand-alone hotel or residential development. Here, the freedom and intimacy of a private home meet the seamless service and refined hospitality of a luxury retreat,’ says Delplancq.
The hotel’s 25 independent suites will each deliver 70 sq m of interior space and a 90 sq m terrace, with 12 featuring private pools. A central swimming pool and an indoor-outdoor bar are expected to anchor the communal areas, alongside a convivial restaurant. Meanwhile, the 22 villas take similar visual cues, translated into long-term residence living. Starck compares them to ship or yacht cabins emerging from the terrain: intimate interiors held within concrete shells, then warmed by vegetation, terracotta, red-toned woods, natural leather and touches of gold.
‘Every space, every detail, every material has to tell a story,’ Starck says. Local artists and craftspeople will contribute to the interiors, although they have resisted a literal rendering of regional style. Instead, A Serra breathes in the talents and personalities of those who pass through it; a setting where cultures meet within what he calls a ‘refuge of living art’. At the aldeia, workshops for painting, pottery, sculpture, drawing and cooking will sit alongside a spa, Yoga Shala, children’s garden, and tennis, padel and pétanque courts. It is an enrapturing personal undertaking for Starck, reflected in the call he made after first encountering the site: ‘This is it. I think we’re finally home.’