A first look at a new exclusive resort in Spain.

The luxury estate of La Sagaleta, like those to be built at Valderrama II, Ignacio Perez drives his car around the rolling hills of La Sagaleta, a private club that covers 2,200 acres of mountains and valleys near Marbella. His father emerges in his thoughts. Enrique Perez Flores built La Sagaleta. The area was formerly owned by Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, who used the estate as his party house and hunting ground.

In the 1980s, when his fortune exceeded 2 billion pounds, he had 200 animals on the property. In 1991, Perez Flores bought the site and began creating what is considered the most elite property in Europe in terms of privacy, security and luxury.''The location seemed remote; this was before the coastal highway was built and Malaga airport was predominantly an inland site. 'There was nothing there - just land and Khashoggi's house, which became a country club. It was a perceived high-risk project," Perez says of his father's ambitions.

At the same time that the Costa del Sol was cementing its love affair with new construction, Perez Flores' decision to build just 420 homes, instead of the 3,000 for which he had permission, seemed like financial suicide. "People thought he had lost his mind. Or at least until they saw La Sagaleta's first golf course. Then they realized this project was too big to fail,'''- says Perez, head of La Sagaleta's business development department. He is undoubtedly feeling a kind of déjà vu. While the wounds of Spain's real estate crash are still fresh and unsold properties remain on the Costa del Sol, La Sagaleta's shareholders recently announced plans to create a second resort, a €200 million (£175 million) project over the next 10 years.

After a worldwide search from Panama to Greece, they chose Sotogrande, which is 40 minutes south of the coast. There they bought Valderrama, an estate that has a golf-famous course that hosted the first European Ryder Cup outside the UK in 1997. Valderrama II will consist of homes ranging in price from 5' to 25''million euros, a five-star hotel and a new golf course that they want to make the best in the world. They have now approached golf designers including Gil Hans, Tom Doak and Ben Crenshaw to get ideas. "It's a big risk for us," admits Perez, "but it's an extension of what La Sagaleta is already doing, so in that sense it's incomparable to the risk my father took 25 years ago. "

The whereabouts of Valderrama II were not available to the press until recently. But Perez walks me through the first tour of what may be the largest new luxury complex in Spain. So far, there's little to see there except a flowing landscape of olive trees and agricultural fields. "You can't build anything else here, so we'll be like'''a small island,' says Perez. This is probably part of the game to convince the super-rich to leave aside the glitz of Marbella in favor of this wild and unspoiled part of the coast, home to the vast and deserted golden beaches on the Costa de la Luz.

Villa Geneva is located on La Sagaleta and has five bedrooms, an outdoor pool with waterfall and heated indoor pool, as well as a sauna and Turkish bath. There's a five-car garage, an elevator and automatic garden irrigation. The price is €5.8m through La Sagaleta (0034 687 443 045; lazagaleta.com)

The area is far from unfamiliar to wealthy buyers as well. The Sotogrande estate, which has been updated by its new owners, is attracting Spanish old capital and the wealthy''foreign buyers have been around for decades.

The neighborhood is also being positioned as a magnet for polo and horse jumping enthusiasts. "One of the many factors attracting people to Sotogrande is its proximity to the real heart of Andalusia, the white villages such as Jerez and Seville. It's a horse and corridor neighborhood," adds Clover.

To get a real sense of what awaits you in Valderrama II, you''much of the landscape, with the exception of golf courses and private gardens, is wild and natural. Most here are Brits, Germans and Norwegians, who typically spend up to 50 million euros building their Andalusian palaces. Some of them, of course, hardly ever visit their homes, but "we take care of everything every day as if the owner were here," says sales director Maika Diaz Rivero. They probably won't sell. "For the owners, their home here is like a little jewelry ring, and it doesn't represent a major part of their wealth," she adds.

If you want to see your neighbors, you have the sanatorium, with membership costing €100,000. "Hopefully Valderrama II's membership fee will be much higher," says''La Sagaleta chief executive Jacobo Sestino, who believes the estate's proximity to Gibraltar airport, a 20-minute drive away, will be a huge advantage for British buyers. La Sagaleta has a concierge service and the restaurant staff know every member of the family by name. There is also an equestrian center run by Manuel, who has worked here for 32 years and cared for Khashoggi's Arabian horses. The new Valderrama II complex will incorporate all of these premium facilities. However, unlike La Sagaleta, where you can buy a plot and build your own house, only four or five houses will be built per year costing from 5 million euros. All houses must have tiled roofs and no more than two floors above ground so that nothing''took too much attention away from the surroundings. Inside a typical home, a palatial space of the highest magnitude opens up: seven-meter-high ceilings in the living room, a lobby that opens to steps across the pool, and in the basement, a home theater, a service apartment and a garage that can house a collection of luxury cars. "Most buyers now are very interested in design and technology. It makes them look younger," Diaz Rivero says. "They also want the home to be impeccably presented with the best brands in everything. These consumers are very informed and extremely demanding." Undoubtedly, buyers at Valderrama II will be just as demanding. But they probably have nothing to worry about. At the age of 92 and as chairman emeritus,''Enrique Perez Flores is still closely monitoring what's going on. All he has to do is build La Sagaleta anew.