The Future of Luxury is Sustainable
The Cliff is a sustainable and luxurious sea-front real estate development on Europe’s closest tropical archipelago, that offers the perfect combination of environmental awareness and opulence. It’s made for people who are seeking a lifestyle that combines environmental consciousness with luxury living. The Cliff is the realization of a vision by an expat family, who lived and worked in Hong Kong and Dubai for almost 30 years. They were looking for a suitable place to realize their lifestyle vision, to locate their “family headquarters” and to offer a home-base to their kids who enjoy an equally international education and lifestyle. Since it was challenging to find any real estate developments that sufficiently matched their vision, they decided to join forces with a friend, they’ve known since university days, to create their own – and to share it with like-minded people.
They found their desired location back in 2008, purchased 12 hectares of prime sea-front land as well as a neighbouring beach plot, went through 4 years of master planning, environmental impact studies and government approval processes to finally obtain government approval and construction permits for their stunning sea-front location, which is surrounded by nature reserves and protected palm framed turtle breeding beaches. By 2015 they started infrastructure development as well as construction of a showroom villa and the community centre. And given their need to tightly control building quality and cost, they established their own construction company, which realized the entire infrastructure- and villa construction and certainly is an exception in this part of the world by nowadays providing open-book cost-plus services to their clients. The real estate offering spans from studios via 1 BR penthouse apartments, and 2 or 3 BR duplex apartments to custom designed luxurious villas, all with unobstructed panoramic sea-/sunset views and surrounded by tropical gardens. Apartments are usually offered as core and shell buildings, to allow its new owners customizing them according to their individual layout preferences and interior design styles.
Layout & Concept
The gated seafront development consists of 57 plots on 98,000m2, situated at the north-west coast of Santiago Island, Cape Verde, located at the center of a 4km wide bay and surrounded by a nature reserve. It is easily reachable in a 75km/one-hour drive from Praia International Airport. While being redundantly connected to public grids, it is designed for energy- and water self-sufficiency, and it is already by now a showcase to proof that a bespoke luxury seafront lifestyle may be self-sustained and doesn’t need to come at the expense of excessive resource usage. All 57 plots, which range from 400m2 to 4500m2, enjoy unobstracted sea-views and a magnificant panorama, mostly covering Ribeira da Prata beach to the south, neighbouring Fogo Island to the west and Monte Graciosa mountan to the north – and, of cause, spectacular sunsets
The Cliff aspires to be largely self-sustained for energy, water and organic food, yet, the compound is also connected to the public water- and electricity grids to offer redundancy and supply safety.
For fast broadband Internet access, the compound is connected by a fiberoptic cable to the grid of CV Telecom which is directly fed by three independent international sub-sea backbone cables, WACS (www.wacscable.com) EllaLink (www.ella.link) and Share. EllaLink is directly connecting Europe and Brazil (bypassing the US) with a node at Cape Verde. This results in a combined capacity of 102,5 terabits. For comparison – Dubai currently has a combined subsea cable capacity of 71,6 terabits.
For additional/redundant internet service security, we may add satellite broadband services, which are available in Cape Verde since late 2024. Thus, feasibility of working internationally from “The Cliff” is neither limited by bandwidth, nor by reliance on one single subsea cable infrastructure – it’s mainly a time zone issue – and it’s easily manageable. Located in GMT-1 zone, time difference to Europe is between 1-3 hrs, 3 hrs to US East coast and 1-2 hrs to West Africa.
Each villa will be equipped with its individual Photo Voltaic (PV) installation, dimensioned to cover 100% of its annual electricity demand, and with its individual 3 chamber biological sewage treatment unit to recycle domestic waste water for landscape irrigation.
In the middle of the compound there is a community center located, which is part of an upscale leisure hotel, offering residents, hotel guests and members a tropical park with sea access, restaurants, bars and a beer garden, an organic grocery shop, yoga, massage and wellness, a gym as well as an iconic, cascaded three tiered infinity swimming pool.
The Community center also houses the underground seawater desalination plant, which is powered by Photovoltaic and Eolic renewable energy, which is generated on the mountainside above The Cliff.
The Cliff management company, a not for profit organization, will provide owners with a variety of services, such as compound security, gardening, domestic services, housekeeping, handyman and property rental supervision services during times of owner’s absence.
The entire compound development is not only designed to be sustainable and in tune with nature, but also for a WIN-WIN situation with local community: we exclusively used local materials and only local manpower during infrastructure development and construction phases to maximize the socio-economic impact of our development.
How to realize your dream home in front of the Sea?
Realizing your dream house in front of the sea is an exciting prospect, yet the approach varies greatly depending on your individual preferences and risk tolerance. From pre-constructed core and shell buildings to almost complete design and construction freedom, there are various options available to suit your needs.
You need to introspect – Understanding your preferences and risk tolerance will help you making an informed decision on your best approach to realizing your dream house in front of the sea.
1. Highly risk-averse clients who prioritize certainty, stability and quality:
Clients, who are extremely risk-averse and prefer to minimize uncertainty in the construction process want the better part of pre-financing and construction already done by the developer, ensuring stability, quality, and cost certainty. However, they still desire the ability to define and contract their interior design according to their individual preferences, allowing for a degree of personalization while minimizing risk. An energy autonomous apartment building is readily designed, and core and shell construction are projected within the near future.
2. Individualists with moderate risk-tolerance are clients who value individuality and customization, yet equally want to manage quality and costs:
These clients desire a high degree of personalization and creativity, but also want to maintain significant control over costs and quality. They will purchase their preferred plot of land and leverage the developer’s expertise, experience and services. The developer of The Cliff offers a one-stop-shopping service, covering architectural design according to clients’ wishes, engineering and administrative service to obtain construction permits, as well as managing and executing construction on an open-book-cost-plus base. This allows for a high degree of flexibility and creativity, while still maintaining an excellent level of control over costs and quality through weekly progress and quantitative input reporting.
3. Risk Takers, who prioritize their creativity and flexibility:
These clients are confident in their ability to manage the construction process themselves and value their utmost degrees of freedom. They will select and secure their preferred plot of land by purchasing it, while designing and building their sea-front villa with a local architect and construction company of their choice. This approach allows for complete personalization and control, but also requires clients to manage costs, quality and their chosen construction company themselves. This option is recommended for risk takers who are highly confident and experienced in managing construction projects.
Site Impressions
Find Us and explore on Maps
The Cliff is located close to Tarrafal de Santiago, on the National Road EN3–ST–26 between Chao Bom and Ribeira da Prata. The exact open location code (OLC) is 797R67Q5+VP, which is practical for Google-based navigation system entries. For your convenience, you may alternatively scan the QR code to define The Cliff as destination in Google Maps.
