Lägenhet på bottenvåning i Estepona, Costa del Sol

A ground floor apartment that lives at garden level, set at the quiet back of an established beachside community on the New Golden Mile, opening through full height glass onto its own planted terrace and lawn.

Menara Beach was completed in 2001 on the beach side of the coast road between Estepona and Marbella, where the older beachfront schemes were laid out before the land behind them filled in. The architecture is credited to Melvin Villarroel, whose low, white, garden centred idiom shaped much of what the Costa del Sol still builds today, and the scheme follows it closely, with the blocks kept to a modest height and stepped so that the planting, not the buildings, is what you see from the paths. There are two large outdoor pools, a heated indoor pool for the winter months, a gymnasium and a sauna, and the community is gated with security around the clock. The community has its own direct access to the sand, a walk of a few minutes through the gardens from this part of the scheme.

This apartment sits at the rear of the development rather than on the seafront, and that is the trade. What it gives up in proximity to the water it takes back in quiet, in privacy and in a garden that is genuinely usable rather than overlooked by the promenade.

The apartment is on the ground floor of the Drago block, which places the living space level with the garden rather than above it. The reception runs open plan through to the dining area and a breakfast bar, with the glazing along the garden elevation carrying light well back into the plan through the middle of the day. The kitchen is fully fitted and sits within the same volume rather than closed off behind a wall, which is how these apartments were designed to be used.

Two bedrooms are set away from the reception. The principal has its own bathroom and a fitted dressing area with wardrobes, and the second bedroom opens directly onto the covered terrace and has its own bathroom. Two bedrooms across this floor area is a generous allocation, and it shows in rooms that take proper furniture rather than the minimum.

The garden is the reason to buy it. A covered terrace off the reception takes a table comfortably and stays usable through the hottest part of the summer, and beyond it the private garden gives the apartment an outdoor room of its own, enclosed and planted. Ground floor units with a private garden in a gated beachside community are among the scarcer things on this coast.

A private garage space and a storeroom are included.

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