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Luxury residential developers and five-star hotel brands are collaborating on full-service homes across the globe. Sue Chester reports on the benefits – and trade-offs – for buyers
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Rooms with a view: customised glass houses
Seeing is believing with these unusually striking properties
Schloss leaders
A glut of German castles at rock-bottom prices is offering the promise of a baronial lifestyle – or opulent corporate HQ – often within striking distance of major cities. Sue Chester charts the pleasures and potential pitfalls
Best addressed
With a royal-borough designation, top state and private schools, period residences and new developments on the way, Kensington is the place to live – not just buy – in London
Another fine Messel
Famed for his theatrical flair and sense of proportion, Oliver Messel was the temperamental genius behind some of the Caribbean’s most sought-after homes (including Princess Margaret’s Les Jolies Eaux). Now a rare selection of his masterpieces is back on the market
A leopard’s new spots
After a decade of rejuvenating transformation, culturally resplendent Sicily boasts infrastructure, top-notch cuisine and properties at roughly half the price of their Tuscan counterparts
The Rio deal
With all eyes on Brazil’s most famous city as it prepares to host the World Cup and the Olympics, ambitious property developers are bringing back a luxury benchmark not seen for decades, says Sue Chester.
The magnificent seventh
Paris’s aristocratic seventh arrondissement has become a magnet for international property buyers, who are seduced by its old-world charm, patrician architecture and the reassurance of a rock-solid investment, says Lisa Freedman.
Crafting a new tradition
The late-19th- and early-20th-century charms of Arts and Crafts houses have kept them in perennial demand. Now aficionados are discovering their 21st-century adaptability, says Dominic Bradbury.
The housewarming
A new country residence is well and truly christened by a flock of boisterously squiffy City friends.
House of the rising sum
Today’s second-home buyers are seeking more than pleasure from their properties – they want an income, too, reports Catherine Moye.
Home delivery
High-end house buyers are now hiring one-stop designer-developers to ensure seamless project management – right down to the teaspoons in the kitchen drawers. By Catherine Moye.
Second homeowners
With the village in its death throes, its life sold out to absentee proprietors from the City, locals discover that revenge is sweet.