“Everything is about the experience,” says Kevin Blary, fresh from his morning beach run and fizzing with energy and positivity. “Absolutely everything.” Blary is the outdoor pursuits director at the Discovery Land Company coastal resort CostaTerra between Comporta and Melides, south of Lisbon in Portugal, where he has the job of keeping the resort’s property owners — and, more importantly, their children — happy.
In this carefully planned, White Lotus-worthy enclave, where turnkey residences start at a cool €7mn, Blary will organise mountain-biking expeditions, horse rides along Comporta’s long sandy beaches and endless sporting competitions. “These people are very competitive,” he says. “With each other and even with their kids.” You want to surf? He’ll arrange private lessons with Garrett McNamara, GMAC to his friends, eight times world-record holder for riding the biggest wave. He’ll take you by helicopter to meet GMAC at Nazaré — notorious for its supersized waves. “For many busy owners, the family bonding that takes place here based on these experiences pays [it forward] for the rest of the year,” Blary says.
Entertaining children has become big business in the elite second-home resort market. An ever-lengthening list of sports facilities, playgrounds, waterslides and interactive games rooms has become customary — but is that enough to keep today’s hyperconnected teens amused? An expertly staffed kids’ club might be nirvana for parents of babies and toddlers, and under-10s could settle for a supervised week of sports or crafts, but teenagers don’t always relish the idea of splendid family isolation, even if it is in a villa in Tuscany or Provence.
“One of the main reasons we see owners looking to sell is [the changing needs of] their children as they become teenagers,” says Robert Green, founder and MD of Sphere Estates, the UK-based boutique real estate agency. He estimates that more than 60 per cent of his resort second homeowners who sell cite this as a reason. “Many resorts focus on amenities for toddlers and young children, but forget about teenagers. Developers now realise the importance of catering to this group and are including exciting options for them.”
Travel forecasting agency Globetrender identified “Alpha activities” as a key trend for 2025. “Generation Alpha, children born into a world of digital connectivity and artificial intelligence between 2010 and 2024, is shaking up how the travel industry thinks about family holidays,” says company founder and chief executive Jenny Southan. “Their parents are seeking experiential distractions away from screens while on holiday.”
Children and teens hospitality consultancy Wanderland quantifies child-friendly hospitality as a $175bn opportunity globally (albeit this takes into account the markets in video games, toys, media, publishing and advertising). And where hotels lead, residential resorts follow. Southan points to Costa Navarino, a beach, sporting and leisure resort in the Peloponnese in Greece, selling homes from €1.45mn, and where the list of activities would exhaust even the most active family. Children can enrol for FC Bayern football camps, train with coaches from the NBA Basketball School or practise serves and smashes at the Mouratoglou Tennis Centre. But it is the “innovative recreational and educational programmes” that are pushing the envelope, Southan says, highlighting experiences such as Young Archaeologists, where children unearth buried artefacts.
“Top residential resorts are putting extra focus into soft programming for children, adding activities and experiences rather than relying just on physical facilities,” says Green. “That could be introducing children’s yoga sessions, cookery classes or educational activities based on local culture around ecology or marine biology. Resorts are recognising that wellness is increasingly becoming a family activity, and adapting their offerings for all ages. By drawing children away from video games and iPads, the best kids’ clubs encourage them to try new experiences and promote a greater awareness of healthy living.”
Sphere Estates is selling homes in several resorts in the Maldives, an archipelago best known as an exclusive honeymoon destination but now becoming increasingly child-friendly. Soneva Fushi and Soneva Jani are prime examples, two celebrity favourite holiday destinations, and the first Maldives resorts to sell private homes (from $5mn). Soneva Jani has South Asia’s largest kids’ club and, as with all Soneva resorts, encourages the absence of screens from children’s and teens’ spaces, instead bringing interactive experiences to the fore. Activities include mindfulness workshops, somatic movement exercises (such as yoga and breathwork), marine biology sessions and stargazing in a “state-of-the-art, Bond-inspired observatory”.
When Baccarat Maldives opens in 2027, alongside villas for sale (from $4.75mn) and outdoor adventure zones with ziplines and climbing walls, it will offer junior wellness sessions, glass and pottery workshops and a turtle rehabilitation programme. At One&Only Mandarina Private Homes on Mexico’s Pacific coast (villas from $4.3mn), teens can explore the coastal rainforest, while children of all ages can meet armadillos and learn about the reproductive cycle of butterflies in a Jungle Playground designed by Academy Award-winning art director Brigitte Broch. And at Cabot Citrus Farms, an extensive residential golf resort one hour from Tampa, Florida (property from $1.675mn), children’s activities include fishing, canoeing, kayaking, and for older kids there’s also five-stand shooting (16 and up) and axe-throwing (12 and up).
If necessity drives invention, there’s certainly personal interest involved for some developers. Discovery Land Company, the company behind CostaTerra and a further 34 private residential communities worldwide, was founded in 1994 by Mike Meldman, an American businessman and Stanford graduate who turned to creating private residential properties when he failed to get into law school. As co-investor in the tequila brand Casamigos with George Clooney and Cindy Crawford’s husband, Rande Gerber, he gathered some famous friends along the way. But the driving force behind his company was, and remains, his own children.
“In the 1990s, I was a single dad with two young kids who I wanted to have fun with on holiday,” explains Meldman. “I started on the golf course, a safe, controlled and fun environment for them when they were little, and we still play together. As they got older, we sought out more adventure and physical activity, like learning to surf. It was an experience where we all got to learn a new skill as a family. My concept was always about exclusivity and privacy mixed with fun.”
Fun means throwing out the rule book and adding informality. Strict dress codes and pre-arranged tee times are not the Discovery way. Instead, owners can turn up when they please — all the courses are reserved solely for property owners — and play in sandals and swim shorts, stopping at club houses loaded with freshly prepared pizza, sweets, fruit and drinks.
In the UK’s affluent second-home hotspot of the Cotswolds, property entrepreneur and developer John Hitchcox started construction on The Lakes by Yoo in 2008, because his children found weekending in a remote rural home with no local friends too isolating. Things to do, and other children to do them with, seemed the logical alternative.
About 90 minutes from London, The Lakes has a predominantly London-based clientele; it offers their city-living children the opportunity to try out a list of activities not usually found in Notting Hill: bushcraft, falconry and den- and raft-building.
“The longevity of residential resorts, especially those within the branded residence market where five-star services and amenities are integral, is heavily reliant on the quality of soft programming for young guests,” concludes Green. “Keep the children happy and not only are adult owners more likely to return, but you also build a strong fan base among the next generation of owners.”
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