ZUHA Island

In The World Islands, the man-made archipelago off the Jumeirah coast of Dubai. The crossing takes twelve minutes by boat from the welcome centre beside the Four Seasons on Jumeirah Beach. From there Downtown Dubai and Business Bay are about fifteen minutes by car and Dubai International about thirty.

Thirty residential villas, and no more were ever planned. They stand around the edge of an island of some 2.5 million sq.ft, alongside a boutique resort of about seventy villas that is run as a hotel rather than sold.

Six en-suite bedrooms, including a master suite facing the ocean, across four levels built around a single spiral staircase and served by a panoramic lift. There are four living spaces, prep and show kitchens, three staff rooms, a garage and storage, a three-level swimming pool with an elevated lounge and an infinity shallow pool, a sea deck, multiple terraces and a rooftop terrace. Interiors are in travertine and marble.

Each villa is 19,656 sq.ft built up and stands on a plot of between 24,000 and 41,000 sq.ft. Parking takes up to twelve cars, and twelve of the villas have exclusive access to a private 35-metre jetty.

The developer is FIVE Holdings, the Dubai hospitality group that opened on Palm Jumeirah in 2017 and whose à la carte services run on the island. The island itself was conceived and engineered by Zaya, founded in 2008 and known for Al Barari in Dubai and Nurai Island off Abu Dhabi, which it built from bare sand including its roads, power and water.

A megawatt of solar panels supplies much of the power, drinking water is produced and bottled on site by reverse osmosis, and grey water is recycled into irrigation. There is a no single-use plastic policy, and in-house marine biologists maintain a house reef established offshore to regenerate native Gulf corals.

A 50/50 plan. Five per cent is paid as a booking fee, forty-five per cent across three construction instalments of fifteen, twenty and ten per cent, and the remaining fifty per cent on handover.