In Former Colonial Hill-Station, Villa Sales Include Golf Club Membership
French design, American financing and Vietnamese development propel La Vallee de Dalat
DALAT, Vietnam (29 Oct. 2008) — Eighty years after Harry S. Colt designed the now famous Dalat Palace Golf Club, a Vietnamese entrepreneur and American financier have broken ground on a suite of classic, French-style villas in this former colonial hill station. Part and parcel of every villa sale is a family membership at the fabled club, built in the early 1930s for the last Emperor of Vietnam, Bao Dai.
Earlier this month, contractors on the Vallee de Dalat (“Vallee”) project moved onto the privately owned hilltop setting to prepare the site for the first phase of construction. When complete, the Vallee site will showcase seven new 600- square-meter (6,500 square-foot) villas, each the beneficiary of a vaunted architectural pedigree and modern design sensibility .
“Now is the time for Dalat,” said Le Ngoc Khanh Tam, general director of the Khanh Tam Development Co., developer of the Vallee. “With its temperate climate, its relative value for money, and its growing reputation as the place in Vietnam to buy a second home and/or retire, Dalat is experiencing a very subtle but very real change in how people take to it.”
Designed by Asiatique, a prominent Ho Chi Minh City-based firm, the Vallee villas will echo the colloquial French architecture that was a hallmark of Dalat’s development in the 1920s and 1930s. The hipped roofs, arches and stone cladding pay homage to Dalat’s architectural legacy.
“The French built Dalat,” said Le Tam, a Dalat native, “and bequeathed to the city a wonderful urban design and a fascinating collection of villas. We’re building these new residences as an aesthetic complement to what’s already there.”
While the city has functioned largely as a tourist destination since the end of the U.S.-led trade embargo, a critical mass of interest in the ‘City of Eternal Spring’ is repositioning Dalat as a permanent or secondary base for expatriates and overseas Vietnamese who long for Vietnam but not necessarily the swelter of Saigon and other lowland destinations.
Its storied golf course, outdoor recreational opportunities, increasingly sophisticated dining venues and its municipal footprint are among the lures driving interest in this 1,500-meter perch on the Lang Bian Plateau in Vietnam’s Southern Highlands. Moreover, the city’s airport has just opened a new runway; a new terminal is scheduled to open in July; and a new four-lane highway reduces to 30 minutes the door-to-door commute from terminal to villa.
“At present, golf is the principal recreational driver in Dalat. The course is a draw throughout Vietnam and East Asia,” said Barry Israel, one of the Vallee’s major financiers and former owner of the Sofitel Dalat Palace Hotel and the Dalat Palace Golf Club. “The club’s won the No. 1 ranking in the last four Planet Golf surveys, and Asian Golf Monthly called out the course as one of the Top 10 in Asia, bar none. We expect a wave of golfers to come in on the initial investment.”
La Vallee de Dalat will come online as a collection of retreats retailing for US $1.3 million to $1.5 million, each located on an individual lot of 800 to 1,100 square meters. The spacious, four-bedroom villas — with wrap-around verandahs, maid’s quarters and wine cellars — command a hilltop location with unobstructed mountain views overlooking Dalat. Each home features a jacuzzi, three fireplaces and 7-8 bathrooms. The interior finishes — hardwood floors of teak or cherry, kitchens in granite, bathrooms in marble, walls of plaster crowned by moldings — celebrate a refined sense of style.
Outdoors in the gated compound, there will be a tennis court and a common area for children’s play and other activities.
Already, the Vallee’s charms have wooed and won Coldwell Banker, a U.S. real estate company with offices worldwide. Coldwell has selected the Vallee villas as its debut product in Vietnam and is featuring the project in its Previews International magazine. CB Richard Ellis, a U.S.-based real estate services company, will manage the property.
All are committed, said Le Tam, to the execution of a design and community aesthetic that is both sophisticated and understated, and that will serve as a respite from the rococo building that’s beset Vietnamese development in recent years.
“In Vietnam, we were sealed off from so much of the outside world for so much of the 20th century, and as a consequence, we lost touch with the invigorating influences of what is current, what is fresh and what is chic,” she said. “At the Vallee, those influences will really help to elevate the appeal of these villas.”
Khanh Tam Development has obtained ‘red paper’ title to the inimitable hilltop setting and has structured ownership rights to ensure the integrity of the buyer’s investment. Le Tam, and her husband, Barry Israel, will retain one of the villas as their own home.
La Vallee de Dalat - Vietnam Resort
