A 4+1 villa for sale in São Brás de Alportel, built for the evenings.

Most villas in the Algarve are designed around the pool. This one, at Cerro do Botelho in the hills above São Brás de Alportel, is designed around what happens after the pool — the hour when the sun drops behind the ridge to the west and the deck becomes the room you actually use. The living area opens through stacking glass doors onto that deck, and everything you need for an evening is already out there: a covered lounge under a retractable roof, an outdoor kitchen with a barbecue and prep area, a fire pit, an outdoor shower, and the heated pool alongside.

Inside, the house is 347 square metres of covered area with four bathrooms. The bedrooms are arranged so that three of them are proper suites. The master has its own upper level with a walk-in dressing room, an en-suite with a jet bath, a large separate shower and twin basins, and double sliding doors onto a private terrace — plus a door of its own from the parking, which is more useful than it sounds when you come home late. A second large bedroom is en-suite with a walk-in wardrobe and opens directly onto the pool area. A ground-level guest suite has its own bathroom and terrace. The fifth room is set up as an office, with underfloor heating, and works as a bedroom if you need one.

The systems are the part I would point a buyer to first, because they are what a house like this costs to run. Air conditioning throughout. Water-based underfloor heating in the main living area, the office and the social bathroom. Solar panels for hot water. Automatic shutters. Rain Bird irrigation feeding a garden planted to get through an Algarve summer on less water. The energy certificate is class B, valid to 2036. The pool is heated and chlorinated.

Why São Brás de Alportel

São Brás de Alportel is the inland town most people drive past on the way to somewhere else, and that is why it works. It is a working Portuguese town — a weekly market, good local restaurants, a calm residential character — that sits entirely outside the tourist corridor. From here Faro airport is about 20 minutes, the Ria Formosa beaches about 30, and Loulé and Tavira are both easy. Cerro do Botelho is a hillside a few minutes above the town, and the west-facing outlook from the deck and the roof terrace runs across the hills with nothing built in the frame.

The paperwork, plainly

The usage licence was issued in March 2025 and covers alteration, extension and the legalisation of existing works, so what is on the ground is what is on the file. One thing your lawyer will pick up, and I would rather you heard from me: the licence records the house as a T3, while it is presented as 4+1. That is a common gap between a licence typology and how a house is actually used, and it is reconciled at due diligence. There are registered bank charges, which are discharged at completion in the normal way. The property is sold on a sole-agency basis through 37°8.

At €1,395,000 the covered area works out at a little over €4,000 per square metre, with the plot on top. For a detached villa of this size and specification, with a heated pool and this much outdoor build, in a location twenty minutes from the airport, that sits inside the range I would expect — and the outdoor kitchen, the retractable lounge roof and the solar hot water are already paid for.

Type	Detached villa · hillside · west-facing
Covered area	347 m²
Plot	4,850 m²
Bedrooms	4 + office · three en-suite
Bathrooms	4
Outdoor	Heated pool · deck · covered lounge · outdoor kitchen · fire pit · outdoor shower · roof terrace
Systems	A/C · water underfloor heating · solar hot water · automatic shutters · Rain Bird irrigation
Parking	3 covered · 8–10 in total · fully gated
Energy rating	Class B (EPC) · valid to 2036
Location	Cerro do Botelho · São Brás de Alportel
Asking price	€1,395,000