Reach for the spas - The latest villa development must-have is a luxury spa on site
I love a bit of pampering,” says Damon Lawrenson, assistant chief executive of Northamptonshire county council. “At home, I get a massage every week and have regular manicures and facials. I’m a modern man – with the pace of life these days, you have to look after yourself.”
Indeed, Lawrenson, 41, from St Helens, on Merseyside, is so devoted to his grooming rituals that he – along with his wife, Donna, 36, who runs a marketing business – has just bought a two-bedroom townhouse at Les Jardins de St Benoît, a residential spa development near the village of St-Laurent, in the Languedoc, for £200,000.
Here, the couple will be able to enjoy the facials and massages on offer in the spa rooms in the development’s grounds, which use fruit, flowers, beeswax, olive oil, grapeseed and camomile, all produced organically in the region. “The area is beautiful and completely untouched,” Lawrenson says. “The surrounding vineyards are fantastic.”
The couple plan to spend long weekends at Les Jardins, where 141 one- and two-bedroom townhouses and 30 three, four- and five-bedroom villas, built in traditional, local style, will be completed next year. Included in the price is access to the spa and use of the hydrotherapy pools, sauna and hammam; the properties can also be placed in the resort’s rental programme.
Emma Wells
Sunday Times
28th September 2008