Billionaire Sandra Ortega’s $280m Portugal resort opens 2027

Na Praia, the luxury beach resort in Portugal backed by Spanish billionaire Sandra Ortega, the elder daughter of Zara founder Amancio Ortega, will open on May 1, 2027, almost a year later than planned after a fire damaged part of the site during construction.

The resort sits among the dunes and pine forests of the Tróia peninsula, south of Lisbon and just north of Comporta, the stretch of Atlantic coast that has become one of Europe’s most sought-after addresses for the wealthy. It was due to open in June this year, but on March 8, a fire broke out in one of its buildings during the final stages of work. Firefighters from across the Alentejo and Setúbal regions responded, and no one was hurt. The damage was limited to a single building, but the summer opening was called off.

Bookings for next year are already open. Suites start at €1,323 ($1,480) a night for mid-May, and houses at €1,512. In late July, suite prices rise to about €1,843 and houses to €2,174. Villas are priced on request.

113 rooms, houses and villas

The resort will have 113 units: 42 hotel rooms, three suites, 63 houses and five villas, ranging from about 56 to 560 square meters. Suites are reserved for guests aged 16 and over. The rooms and houses are grouped around the Casa Mãe, a main building that serves as the resort’s social center.

Paris-based Studio KO, founded by architects Karl Fournier and Olivier Marty, designed the buildings, with landscaping by Greek designer Thomas Doxiadis and interiors by Estúdio Lisboa. Na Praia will join The Leading Hotels of the World, the luxury hotel group.

The project has been more than a decade in the making. Portuguese hotelier José António Uva, who is promoting it, first explored the coastline in 2011. The land is owned by Ferrado Na Comporta, which bought it from the Portuguese conglomerate Sonae between 2016 and 2018 for about €50 million. Ortega invested through Rosp Corunna, her family office in A Coruña, and her investment in the resort was put at about €250 million ($280 million) in 2024, when the plans called for a hotel and 77 homes on about 96 hectares.

Construction began in 2021 but stopped in 2023 after Dunas Livres, an environmental group, went to court over the project’s impact on local habitats and wildlife. The Administrative and Fiscal Court of Beja dismissed the challenge, and work resumed.

Spain’s richest woman

Ortega, 58, is the richest woman in Spain. She owns 5.05% of Inditex, the world’s biggest fashion retailer and the owner of Zara, Massimo Dutti and Pull&Bear, making her the company’s second-largest shareholder after her father. The stake is worth about €8.5 billion.

She inherited it from her mother, Rosalía Mera, who co-founded Zara with Amancio Ortega in 1975 and died in 2013. Rosp Corunna, which holds the stake along with property and other investments, has assets of more than €11 billion and earned a profit of €307 million last year. Inditex dividends are expected to bring it about €275 million this year.

Unlike her half-sister Marta Ortega, who chairs Inditex, Sandra Ortega has never worked at the company and keeps a low public profile. She is best known in Spain for the Paideia Foundation, which her mother set up to support people with disabilities. Her father, 90, is worth about $127 billion.

Figures were converted at €1 to $1.12.