Meet the hoteliers bringing affordable luxury to Comporta
When Mariella and Charlie Metcalfe bought their house in Comporta in 2012, they were one step ahead of the game. In fact, make that two, or possibly three, such is the metamorphosis in recent years of this strip of the Portuguese coast – less than two hours’ drive south of Lisbon – from an outpost of the wild west to one of Europe’s most desirable hotspots.
For outsiders, it can be hard to understand exactly to what Comporta refers. Broadly speaking, it is the catch-all term for both a small village and a wider area, Herdade da Comporta, which encompasses numerous hamlets and settlements bordering a 40-mile stretch of Atlantic coastline between Troia and Sines. You might also say that, in recent years, the name Comporta has begun to define a certain style.
I first meet Mariella and Charlie Metcalfe in their Lisbon home in the city’s Príncipe Real district – a grand apartment in a palace belonging still to the Lancaster family. In the lobby of the building, a family tree details the generations reaching back to John of Gaunt and the Plantagenet kings and queens of England. In the ballroom, which now acts as the Metcalfes’ drawing and dining room, the elaborate frescoes – festooning the walls with delicate flowers and cherubs – date back to 1795, some 40 years after the devastating earthquake in which a third of Lisbon’s population lost their lives.
From the more immediate past, however, are silver-framed photographs of Mariella’s German father and Polish mother, who arrived in Lisbon with their young family on the eve of the Carnation Revolution in 1974 to start a new life. Mariella’s career (in financial communications) has since taken her all over Europe, but much of her childhood was rooted in Portugal – and fluent Portuguese numbers high among the five languages she speaks with interchangeable ease. When choosing somewhere to settle with her English entrepreneur husband Charlie and their children, Portugal therefore seemed an obvious choice.
While Mariella remembers short trips to Comporta in her childhood, it was, she recalls, never a destination where anyone spent any time outside the summer. ‘Most houses were small, traditional workers’ houses for fishermen or rice farmers, with thatched roofs and little space inside,’ she says, adding that, in the warmer months, people would ‘create rooms outside’.
Comporta in those days was largely the playground of the Espírito Santo family, one of Portugal’s oldest, most important banking dynasties until it fell from grace in 2014. Theirs was a distinctly bohemian crowd of well-heeled artists, designers and fashionistas, drawn to the area’s leisurely vibe. ‘It was a bit like Cape Cod and the Kennedy clan,’ Mariella explains, but points out that Comporta’s glamour was more understated than that parallel might imply.
In a way this has not changed. There is still much about Comporta that feels rustic, carefree and unassuming: nesting storks on every chimney pot and telegraph pole; rolling sand dunes backed by pine forest; vibrant green rice paddies, from the depths of which a cacophony of frogs fills the twilight air amid the buzz of Comporta’s famously ferocious mosquitoes.
Scratch under the surface, however, and a different Comporta appears – a place of exquisite private houses, A-list celebrities seeking below-the-radar escapism, fashionable restaurants and beach cafés, designer boutiques and exclusive hotels.
And thus we circle back to Charlie and Mariella and their chance encounter in 2019 with the owner of what Charlie describes as a ‘truly awful, Soviet-style motel’, in a prime location in Comporta village itself. ‘We gave her a lift to Lisbon one day,’ he recalls, of the old lady who had run it as a struggling three-star hotel for years. ‘We had no idea who she was, but once we got talking and realised she might be persuaded to sell, we knew that this opportunity was an absolute must.’
We are sitting in the garden of the Metcalfes’ Comporta home, an original, single-storey house with all the patina and charm of the local vernacular, to which various accoutrements have been added – a swimming pool and a tennis court, green lawns and borders of bobbing hydrangeas rather like those you might find in an English country garden. We are discussing the rise of Comporta. ‘We could see that this area was going only in one direction,’ says Charlie. ‘It was becoming more and more elitist. We wanted to create the antithesis of this, to provide a hotel that was more relaxed and more accessible to a younger, less pampered crowd.’
After a couple of false starts – and not helped by the global pandemic – Charlie and his hotel consultant Tim House appointed Miguel Simões de Almeida, a seasoned hotelier and an old friend of Mariella’s, in whom Charlie recognised just the entrepreneurial spirit he was after. ‘Miguel totally understood what we wanted to do with the hotel,’ he says, of the concrete block that, with the help of various outside investors, he had finally managed to get his hands on.
Miguel had the added advantage of owning a hotel in Lisbon (and has recently opened a second) under the AlmaLusa label, so it made sense to capitalise on brand recognition and the infra-structure of operating systems to bring the coastal property into the fold, christening the hotel AlmaLusa Comporta.
That was just the half of it, however; the other half was to redefine the entire look and feel of the place but without knocking down the existing building. Having toyed with the idea of a nautical theme, Mariella and Charlie reverted swiftly to embrace what is now often termed ‘Comporta style’. This is a tousled, rustic, hippie-chic look characterised by natural materials – woven straw or grass, bleached wood, blousy linens – and a simple, neutral palette with occasional pops of colour.
‘We knew the hotel was a difficult structure to play with,’ says Charlie. ‘But we were aiming to blend a 1920s, laidback Miami beach feel with Comporta natural.’ And this is exactly what has been delivered. The hotel’s 22 rooms and 31 suites come in every shape and size, some with terraces or small gardens, some without. A downstairs café serves coffee and snacks by day, while the rooftop bar springs into action each evening – with a live DJ several nights a week.
How clever, I think, of the hotel’s fun and unpretentious atmosphere and easy-on-the-pocket prices. But it is the location that is the real deal here. The village of Comporta, with its array of tantalising shops and restaurants, is right on the doorstep and, unlike any other hotel in the area, the sensational beach is just 20 minutes’ walk away – or five minutes away on one of AlmaLusa’s electric bikes – along a wooden boardwalk that traverses the rice paddies and sand dunes.
Like most visitors to Comporta, I cannot fail to be seduced by its charm. ‘There’s something very special, very unique about this place,’ Miguel tells me, echoing Mariella and Charlie’s words almost exactly. To flit between Lisbon and this stretch of Atlantic Coast seems an enviable lifestyle; to create a business out of that lifestyle seems super smart.
Most importantly, however, as word seeps out of yet more celebrity enclaves being developed along this stretch of coast, the AlmaLusa is embracing its second summer season, now fully integrated into the village’s way of life. And the Metcalfes? Deeply satisfied, I trust, at having preserved a bit of Comporta magic for those whose pockets are not quite so deep.
AlmaLusa Comporta: almalusahotels.com/comporta
Dean Hearne1/9Mariella and Charlie with dachshunds Fritz and Strudel at a typical kiosk in the Praça das Flores, a short walk from their grand historical apartment in Lisbon.
Dean Hearne2/9One of the bedrooms at the hotel, featuring the hippy chic look that epitomises Comporta style.
Dean Hearne3/9Dining with friends including José Ribeira (right), local horse whisperer of equestrian company Cavalos na Areia, and Isabel Costa (left) of lifestyle store The Life Juice, whose pieces are displayed and sold at AlmaLusa Comporta.
Dean Hearne4/9Hotelier Miguel Simões de Almeida and Charlie talk shop in the lobby of AlmaLusa Comporta.
Dean Hearne5/9The exterior of the hotel.
Dean Hearne6/9Mariella with her friend Cathrine Austad, one of the hotel’s investors, outside her Comporta boutique Lavanda.
Dean Hearne7/9Salads and seafood dishes at Sal restaurant.
Dean Hearne8/9Vasco Hipólito Raposo is the flamboyant co-owner of popular beach bar and restaurant Sal, which relocated to this spot last summer. A collection of model boats brings character to the interior.
Dean Hearne9/9Designers Catarina Bruges and Teresa Salreta, who assisted with the interiors at AlmaLusa.
