Nazaré — Hoch über Dem Meer, Eine Villa Mit Pool Für Das Familienleben

There are houses you simply live in, and houses of which you are the captain. This one belongs to the second kind.

Perched high above it all, it watches over the ocean without ever losing sight of it. Ahead, green fields roll out to the blue line of the horizon; to the sides, village life carries on, discreet, never intrusive. Standing here feels like standing on a ship’s bridge: above everything, never isolated, yet resolutely set apart from the bustle.

It all begins with the garden. The entire property is fully enclosed — a choice that changes everything: close the gate, and leave with a free mind, while the children run outside without a backward glance. A generous, immaculate lawn opens up as an open-air playground, large enough for a rolling ball, a race, a kite climbing into the sky. Further on, the land folds into different levels, nooks and small outcrops of golden stone — perfect for inventing hiding places, playing hide-and-seek, spinning stories only children know how to write. In front of the house, the pool completes the picture, its turquoise blending with the deeper blue of the ocean beyond, as if garden and sea were answering each other in a single glance. And the beach itself is within reach — on foot, by bike, or a short drive away — without ever losing that sense of belonging to a place of one’s own. It’s easy to imagine whole afternoons spent outdoors, perfectly safe, with just enough freedom to let the imagination run.

The architecture, resolutely contemporary — pure volumes, flat roofs, wide black-framed windows — steps back to let the landscape take over: in the living room, a wide ribbon window frames the ocean across the full width of the room, like a painting that never closes. Yet nothing here has the coldness of a showroom. Antique furniture, Persian rugs, a wall hanging, a statue brought back from some distant journey: the house has a soul, a memory, a warmth its architecture doesn’t give away from the outside.

A suspended staircase, stone steps and glass railings, leads up beneath a cathedral ceiling — a signature all its own.

The house is designed like a set of drawers, able to open up or close in on itself as needed. On the ground floor, a vast living space brings together the living room, dining room and kitchen around five ensuite bedrooms. Upstairs, two independent apartments — one further ensuite bedroom in each, with its own kitchen — accessible both from inside the house and directly from outside: seven ensuite bedrooms in all, laid out so that everyone has their own independence. Ideal for grandparents hosting grandchildren in full independence, an extended family sharing the house without ever getting in each other’s way, or a rental, whether occasional or ongoing. And if the wish is for a single unified space instead, ground floor and upper floor can be brought back together into one vast home.

Above all, this is a generous house: spaces to unwind, others to play in, a quiet corner to work, a bedroom to rest away from it all. Storage that never feels cluttered, a workshop space, a wine cellar — room for whatever the imagination can dream up. And yet, for all this generosity of space, the house keeps a human scale: no one ever feels lost here, everyone finds their place.

Everything here is close at hand. A public nursery and primary school sit within the village itself; secondary school and a private Portuguese school are just minutes away, in Nazaré, where supermarkets and everyday shops can also be found. For international families, a British-curriculum school less than an hour away offers a school bus route serving the area directly. Golf enthusiasts, meanwhile, are spoilt for choice: several of the country’s most renowned courses lie just 20 to 30 minutes away, around Óbidos.

This is a wonderful house to live in year-round. It is just as wonderful a house to gather in, come holiday time, across several generations — each with their own space, all brought together around the same horizon. Whether for parents with their children, or grandparents with their grandchildren, this is a house where wonderful memories are made.