Located in the Vinho Verde wine region, the 23,700-square-foot Villa Beatriz has been in the same family since the early 1900s. Now the home is looking for a new steward
4 min
In the early 1870s, Francisco Antunes de Oliveira Guimarães, a teenager from a rural corner of northern Portugal, made his way to Brazil. By century’s end he was a wealthy financier, and in the early years of the new century, he completed a palatial, three-story manor house for himself and his new bride, Beatriz, in the heart of Portugal’s Vinho Verde wine region. The nearly 100-acre property, reinvented in the 1990s as a thriving wine estate, has been the family seat ever since.
The property, with the main home’s original furniture and decorations largely intact, is now set to pass out of the family for the first time. The estate is on the market for roughly $8.2 million, a price that includes original hand-carved furniture fashioned from exotic tropical hardwood, according to Francisco’s granddaughter, Carmen Guimarães, 90, who has lived on the property since the early 1990s. Known as Villa Beatriz, in honor of Francisco’s bride, the 23,700-square-foot home has 13 bedrooms and eight bathrooms. With a number of outbuildings, it has over an acre of formal gardens decorated with classical statuary. The gardens, like the house itself, have been designated a historic landmark.
Carmen is selling the property along with her two daughters, Anabela Guimarães, 70, and Alexandra Guimarães, 67. Carmen says Francisco, born into a family of modest local landowners, was a Rio de Janeiro financial tycoon who started out selling lottery tickets and ended up founding a large bank. Still, he remained rooted in the area around the Ave River, which runs through the estate.
Built in an opulent Belle Époque-style, Villa Beatriz is a fusion of Brazilian materials and Portuguese craftsmanship. Rooms are presided over by intricate stucco ceilings. Atmospheric wall paintings, featuring everything from hunting scenes to tributes to Portugal’s Age of Exploration, decorate the walls of the main floor’s reception rooms and the bedrooms on the second floor. Even the onetime staff rooms, on the top floor, still have elaborate antique beds made from cherry wood.
Villa Beatriz is an imaginative blending of historical styles, says Tobias Hoffmann, director of Berlin’s Bröhan Museum, known for its collection of modern European decorative arts. The neo-Moorish tiled facade—which can be the same shade of blue as the Minho sky—gives way to a fanciful entrance hall decorated with neo-Renaissance trompe-l’oeil wall paintings. The formal dining room is a freewheeling mix of both Moorish and Renaissance touches, he says, while second-floor bedrooms have a neo-Rococo flair.
The estate has had its share of sorrows. Beatriz, Francisco’s wife, died before she could ever see the house he built for her. A generation later, Carmen, who never really knew her grandfather, moved there at age 12 to live with her aunt and uncle after both her parents died within a matter of months. A widow herself since 2010, Carmen is still active, and has more recently overseen the maintenance and restoration of the house on her own. “It looks exactly the same as it did when I was growing up,” she says.
The estate is located east of the city of Braga in the Vinho Verde region, which is known for its light, slightly fizzy, affordable whites. The Guimarães family had long produced wine for private consumption, but starting in the early 1990s Carmen and her late husband, textile manufacturer Carlos Alberto Rodrigues Guimarães, launched a modern commercial winemaking facility. They named their flagship wine Quinta Villa Beatriz, after the estate, and put the house itself on the label. Spread across 30 acres, the vines grow classic Vinho Verde white grape varieties, including Loureiro and Trajadura.
Though things have stayed pretty much the same at Villa Beatriz, the Vinho Verde region is undergoing its own reinvention, says José Ferreira, a sommelier at Lisbon’s Michelin-starred Belcanto restaurant. “Some great wines are starting to be produced there,” he says, citing a new wave of winemakers who are replacing traditional varieties with Alvarinho, a premium white grape that does well on either side of the Spanish-Portuguese border.
The prices of wine estates in Vinho Verde are increasing dramatically, but can still be far less than those of the adjacent Douro Valley, which produces Portugal’s most expensive wines, says Artur Pinto Leite, a senior consultant at the Porto office of Savills, who specializes in wine estates. Top Douro Valley wine estates can fetch prices in excess of $109,000 per hectare, he says—a level that can only be reached in Vinho Verde if Alvarinho has already been planted. The price of luxury homes in the two regions can vary dramatically, adds Pinto Leite, depending on ocean access in the case of Vinho Verde, and river proximity in the Douro areas.
Carmen and her daughters aren’t especially big wine drinkers, they say. But Anabela, who raised her own family not far away, can sound wistful while giving a tour of the winery her father built. Now a grandmother herself, the retired textile-company executive likes to recall that she was married in the manor house, as were her children. “My heart is here,” she says, of the property.
Her mother, however, is looking forward to the next chapter. Still managing daily trips up and down her imposing staircase, she is thrilled at the thought of moving to a home with only one story—and a fraction of the upkeep. And when it comes to wine, she has a confession to make: “I prefer a glass of Port.”
Ruy Nogueira of Luximos/Christie’s International Real Estate is handling the sale.
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Rugged coastal drives and fireside drams define a slow, indulgent journey through Scotland’s far north.
A haven for hedge-fund titans and Hollywood grandees, Greenwich is one of the world’s most expensive residential enclaves, where eye-watering prices meet unapologetic grandeur.
A haven for hedge-fund titans and Hollywood grandees, Greenwich is one of the world’s most expensive residential enclaves, where eye-watering prices meet unapologetic grandeur.
4 min
Greenwich, Connecticut, is in New England (just barely), but that doesn’t mean it’s a quaint, sleepy small town with covered bridges and white churches on the green.
It’s leafy, certainly, but it’s also a luxury-minded power centre close to New York City, with many celebrity residents (director Ron Howard, singer Diana Ross, actor Meryl Streep and, at one time, Australia’s own Mel Gibson).
The main shopping street, Greenwich Avenue, is home to brand stores such as Hermès, Kate Spade, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Tiffany & Co.
And Greenwich, particularly in the “back country” north of the Merritt Parkway, is host to some of the most exclusive real estate in the world.
The average price for a single-family home in the second quarter of 2025 was USD $3.25 million (AUD $4.9 million). But that’s merely an entry point, buying a smaller home in one of the town’s less desirable neighbourhoods.
What does USD $43 million (AUD $66 million) buy in Greenwich?
Last autumn’s most expensive listing offered a 1,068-square-metre waterfront home with eight bedrooms and 11 bathrooms, plus “Gatsby-like lawns”, a gym, games room, party room, wine cellar, fruit orchard, pool and spa. The front and side porches have heated floors.
Prefer something more traditional and secluded? For USD $33 million (AUD $50 million), buyers could close on an 11,760-square-metre Georgian manor on 3.2 hectares, featuring eight fireplaces, an elevator, and a dumbwaiter.
The first floor features a three-storey cascading chandelier. For bibliophiles, there’s a two-storey mahogany library. If bocce is more your pace, a similar USD $25 million compound on 7.5 hectares, built for a liquor magnate in 2009, may appeal. Fourteen bathrooms should suffice.
The Greenwich market is strong, but not without challenges.
“The big problem is that there’s no inventory,” said Evangela Brock, an agent with Douglas Elliman. “It’s extremely low at all price points.”
In November, just 15 properties under USD $1 million (AUD $1.52 million) were listed without contracts, compared with 23 above USD $10 million (AUD $15.2 million). Of those, six had contracts pending. Greenwich has more than 17,000 single-family homes.
Kanebridge Quarterly toured two mid-priced houses in Greenwich. “You don’t lose money in Greenwich real estate,” said Beth MacGillivray, a realtor with the Higgins Group. “This is the hot spot.”
MacGillivray opened the door to a 733.9-square-metre Georgian colonial in the Sherwood Farms Association development her family built in 2005. The house was expected to sell for about USD $5 million (AUD $7,743,535).
The six-bedroom, four-level house is move-in ready, with staged furniture showing its potential and many of the amenities that buyers in this range expect.
Visitors enter through a two-storey foyer with a marble floor. A circular staircase leads to an airy living room with double-height ceilings.
There’s a main bedroom with his-and-hers bathrooms, a cherry-panelled library with cigar-smoke venting, five fireplaces, and a state-of-the-art kitchen with a breakfast nook by Greenwich-based designer Christopher Peacock.
Most rooms have huge walk-in wardrobes. Even the laundry room has granite countertops. Custom millwork, cabinetry and fixtures are evident throughout.
The drawbacks? A smaller yard and no pool. Still, refugees from the city would marvel at the abundant interior space.
Not far away, an entirely different house was on the market for USD $2.66 million.
The imposing 696.7-square-metre, nine-bedroom, seven-bath Georgian/Federal home on Shady Lane in the Glenville neighbourhood was built in 1900. Its good bones and inherent grandeur were apparent, as was a clear need for updating.
“It’s a good project for someone,” said realtor Kaori Higgins. “It needs the right buyer, someone who is looking to return it to its stately original condition.”
Given the hot market, some buyers may be tempted to tear it down and build anew.
But the house is filled with charming period details, including hand-built stone fireplaces, reading nooks, pocket doors, leaded windows and beautiful original millwork.
The second floor offers a vast veranda with views of Long Island Sound and a built-in swimming pool.
The drawbacks? Bathrooms that were awkwardly redesigned in the 1970s, unsightly flooring on the upper levels, and crumbling exterior elements.
Higgins noted that a nearby sister property, fully renovated, sold for USD $11 million (AUD $17 million). Any buyer of Shady Lane’s faded elegance would need both imagination and deep pockets.
For contrast, Kanebridge Quarterly left Greenwich for nearby Fairfield’s upscale Greenfield Hill neighbourhood to visit Lion’s Gate, a 595 square metre Tudor Revival home built as a modest dwelling in the 1920s but extensively expanded and remodelled in 2000.
With three acres of land, a guest cottage, an artist’s studio and a pool house, the asking price is USD $3.3 million (AUD $5 million). Like the Sherwood home, Lion’s Gate is flawlessly move-in ready, with designer touches throughout.
The entire second floor was added during the renovation and features parquet flooring, a massive main suite, arched doorways and 2.74-metre ceilings.
Many rooms include walk-in wardrobes, extensive carved millwork and built-ins. The wood-panelled library (on the site of the former stable) is warm and inviting.
The expansive kitchen includes a window seat with a hand-painted ceiling, a wine cooler and a butler’s pantry.
Realtor Lorelei Atwood said Fairfield faces the same inventory shortage as Greenwich.
“Demand is growing as more New York-based executives are being told they have to report to the office,” she said. “Fairfield has always been a commuter town.”
Why is this home USD $3.3 million (AUD $5 million), and the Sherwood property around USD $5 million (AUD $7,743,535)?
Location. Greenfield Hill is lovely, but Greenwich real estate occupies a rarefied class of its own.
Note: Thanks to realtor Sherri Steeneck for chaperoning.
This story appeared in the Autumn issue of Kanebridge Quarterly, which you can buy here.
