Algarve: €1.75m A large and lavish villa near the town of Loule on the Algarve in Portugal is on the market at €1.75 million through the Dublin agency Splash International Properties.

Located six miles from the coast, about half an hour from Faro airport, Loule is a pleasant town with a wide central avenue flanked by interesting shops and cafés and a Saturday market.

The exclusive resort of Quinto do Lago is only a short drive away but Loule has a totally different feel, and prices are correspondingly adjusted.

Located a short drive outside the town is Quinta da Corujinha, a pretty pink painted villa overlooking open countryside.

The five-bedroom, 430sq m (4,628sq ft) house was built four years ago by property developer Roger Still who has spent over 20 years developing on the Algarve, notably in Quinta do Lago.

"We enjoyed living in Quinta do Lago - it's a superb development - but with a young family we started to look further inland to find a house with space around it for the kids to enjoy. Eventually we found a wonderfully located ruin with an unusually large construction area and lots of land - around 36,000sq m"

The Stills aimed to produce a comfortable family home with the look of a traditional country house but with all mod-cons built in. It took them four years to complete the project. They are now planning to relocate to Madeira, hence the sale. The house has five bedrooms, four and a half bathrooms and extensive living areas including a large airy livingroom that is cosy in winter thanks to its big open fireplace. The thick outside walls give good thermal insulation levels: cool in summer, warm in winter. Even so, it has state of the art air-conditoning plus underfloor heating in bathrooms. The grounds include a wide range of trees, including olives which are thought to be many centuries old.