El Madroñal 1

About this property

Everything in El Madroñal 1 happens on one floor. Two hundred and forty four square metres of house, three hundred and eighty nine of terrace wrapped around it, standing on a plot of one thousand six hundred and sixty six. Four bedrooms, four bathrooms, four hundred metres above the sea with the Sierra de las Nieves at the back and the Mediterranean in front. The asking price is 2,250,000 euro.

A house without stairs is worth more than it sounds. Nothing has to be carried up, every room reaches the garden directly, and the plan can be read from the front door. It also means the terrace is continuous instead of stacked, which is where those three hundred and eighty nine metres go: around the building rather than on top of it.

The style is the traditional one for the hill. Whitewashed walls, a terracotta roof, deep window reveals and porcelain floors inside. The windows are unusually large for a house of this age and the living space has been arranged around them rather than around the fireplace. The furniture stays with the house.

There is a pool, and beside it an infinity jacuzzi set so that its water line sits against the view rather than against a wall. The planting is mature and runs on automatic irrigation. Pets are allowed here, which this kind of community does not always permit and which is worth knowing early if it applies to you.

Four bedrooms, three of them en suite, all on underfloor heating, which at four hundred metres gets used for more of the year than it would down at the beach. The garage holds three cars, so nothing has to sit outside. Fibre runs to the house, there is a built-in barbecue on the covered terrace, and the sitting room keeps its original beamed ceiling against the newer glazing.

The running costs split oddly. IBI is 709 euro a year, which is low for the plot, while the community fee is 394 a month, which is not, and what it buys is the gate, the roads and the security the address depends on. The energy certificate is in progress. Benahavís village is a few minutes further up and Marbella roughly twenty minutes down.