Meghan and Harry’s Portugal pad is ‘first step in property investment’,
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s new Portuguese property is not a sign of the couple moving back closer to home, but the start of a multimillion pound property portfolio, it has been reported.
The Daily Mail revealed last month that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had bought a home near Harry’s cousin Princess Eugenie’s beachside property on the country’s west coast.
Harry and Meghan visited Eugenie and her husband, Jack Brooksbank, at the CostaTerra Golf and Ocean Club, a luxury development of 300 properties by the sea in Melides, south of the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, last year in a seemingly pivotal trip.
However, while many might have suspected their purchase since was a way to move back closer to the UK, The Sun reports it is the first part of a global property empire.
The California-based couple are looking to solidify their Netlix millions, having signed a five-year agreement with the streaming giant in 2020 worth an estimated $100million (£80million).
It is not known whether the Sussexes plan to leave their new home empty to accrue value, or if it will be let out to tourists as an Airbnb-style holiday home.
A source told The Sun that the pair are hoping to be ‘smart’ with their millions as they continue to foot a vast security bill in the States.
Insiders suggested that they plan to invest further in real estate in the coming years.
There, the Sussexes remain in their £19.5 million Tuscan-style mansion in Montecito with seven bedrooms, 13 and a half bathrooms, library, cinema, gym, pool and chicken coop.
With their latest acquisition in Portugal, the couple might get their hands on a so-called Golden Visa, under which they would have visa-free access to the European Union’s Schengen area.
CostaTerra Golf is owned by a company founded by Mike Meldman, one of George Clooney’s business partners in tequila firm Casamigos – a former workplace of the Sussexes’ pal Mr Brooksbank.
Jose Santos, head of the Alentejo Tourism Board, confirmed that the Sussexes had enjoyed a ‘short stay’ at the CostaTerra last year when it was reported they had enjoyed a romantic three-night getaway there after the Invictus Games in Germany.
‘We have no idea how many people linked to cinema, royalty, arts, design and fashion visit us, precisely because they value discreet travel, which is something they find in Alentejo like nowhere else in Europe,’ he said.
If a place there does get the couple visa privileges, this could have been a major attraction to Meghan, who is a US citizen.
When the couple got engaged in November 2017, Kensington Palace said Meghan would apply for British citizenship in due course, with a spokesman confirming that ‘she will go through the process [which] takes a number of years’.
However, she eventually abandoned her bid to become a British citizen after she and her husband left the country in March 2020, less than two years after their wedding.
A spokesman for the Sussexes confirmed in January last year that they had been asked by the King to give up their British home, Frogmore Cottage.
The five-bedroom property in the grounds of Windsor Castle was offered to Prince Andrew, the King’s brother, who rejected a move from the much larger Royal Lodge elsewhere at Windsor.
The King’s move followed the publication of Harry’s highly controversial memoir, Spare, in which he criticised members of the Royal Family including his stepmother, Queen Camilla, and his brother and sister-in-law, the Prince and Princess of Wales.
Frogmore Cottage was given to the Sussexes by the late Queen Elizabeth II in 2018, shortly after the couple were married at St George’s Chapel, Windsor. Officially, however, the Crown Estate owns the property.
