Villa Amalfi

Italian lines, island address

Villa Amalfi is a cluster of three, four and five-bedroom villas that Meraas has built at the centre of Jumeira Bay Island, the small residential island reached by bridge from Jumeirah Beach Road. The architecture takes its cue from southern Italy: pale sandy stone elevations, sharply drawn edges and bronze detailing, in place of the glass-and-white-render treatment used across most Dubai villa communities. Homes are arranged over several storeys rather than spread horizontally, so the plots are compact and the living space is stacked. Wincasa Properties markets the villas as an authorised sales partner of Meraas; Meraas is the developer, and the purchase contract is signed with the developer.

The organising idea of the scheme is the landscape rather than the individual plot. Meraas states that the villas front 12,500 sqm of landscaped park held for residents of the neighbourhood alone, and the houses are designed so that ground-floor doors and roof terraces both give onto it, with the park doing the work of a much larger garden. That arrangement is why the private plots read smaller than the total green area suggests. For families, the trade is a private garden of modest size in exchange for a large shared park that is maintained by the community rather than by the owner, and that is a real difference in both lifestyle and running cost.

Shared facilities listed by the developer are a large outdoor pool, courts for tennis and basketball, a fully equipped gym, a children's play area and a residents' lounge. Terraces at second and third-floor level are drawn to take in views over the Arabian Gulf, and interiors are specified in a restrained modern idiom with Italian references rather than heavy ornament. Jumeira Bay itself is quiet and low-rise, laid out with gardens, private beaches and short boulevards. Meraas quotes a five-minute drive to Dubai's central district, around ten minutes to Downtown Dubai, roughly fifteen minutes to Dubai International Airport and about twenty minutes to Dubai Marina.

Bulgari Resort Dubai, its spa and its restaurants sit on the same island a short distance away, and the Bulgari marina and yacht club is part of that development. It is worth being precise about this: Villa Amalfi is a Meraas villa product and carries no brand licence of its own, so the Bulgari name describes a neighbour rather than anything attached to these houses. Meraas publishes no price and no sales status for Villa Amalfi, so the correct answer is price on request and availability confirmed at the time of asking. An enquiry goes to Wincasa Properties, the sale and purchase agreement is with Meraas Development LLC, and instalments are paid into the project escrow account under Dubai Land Department rules, never to the broker.