Articles and Reviews

La Vallee de Dalat

by News Desk

Seventy years after French developers speckled the piney hillsides of Dalat with villas, a Vietnamese entrepreneur has commenced construction on a suite of classic, French-style villas in the former colonial hill station.

In late September, contractors on the Vallee de Dalat project moved onto the privately owned hilltop setting to prepare the site for the first phase of construction.

When complete, the Vallee site will showcase seven new 600-square-meter (6,500 square-foot) villas, each a beneficiary of a vaunted architectural pedigree and a modern sensibility of design.

“Now is the time for Dalat,” Le Ngoc Khanh Tam, general director of the Khanh Tam Development Co., developer of the Vallee, said.

“With its temperate climate, its relative value for money, and its growing reputation as the place in Vietnam to buy a second home and/or retire, Dalat is experiencing a very subtle but very real change in how people take to it," he said.

While the city has functioned largely as a tourist destination since the end of the US-led trade embargo, a critical mass of interest in the “City of Eternal Spring” is repositioning Dalat as a permanent or secondary base in Vietnam for expatriates and overseas Vietnamese who long for Vietnam, but not necessarily the swelter of Saigon and other lowland destinations.

Its storied golf course, outdoor recreational opportunities, increasingly sophisticated dining venues and municipal footprint are among the lures driving interest in this 1,500-metre perch on the Lang Bian Plateau in Vietnam´s Southern Highlands.

Moreover, the city´s airport has just opened a new runway; a new terminal is scheduled to open in July; and a new four-lane highway reduces the door-to-door commute from terminal to villa to 30 minutes.

“Once the airport´s expansion is fully functional and prepared for direct international flights, we expect Dalat to realize the same kind gains that Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi have as investors moved in,” Barry Israel, one of the Vallee´s major financiers and former owner of the Dalat Palace Hotel and the Dalat Palace Golf Club said.

“In Dalat, there won´t be the rampant development we´ve seen in the major cities, but there´s no question that Dalat is on the verge of its own mini-boom.”

Enter La Vallee de Dalat, a collection of retreats retailing for US $1.3 million to $1.5 million, each located on an individual lot of 800 to 1,100 square meters. The spacious, four-bedroom villas, with wrap-around verandahs, maid´s quarters and wine cellars, command a hilltop location with unobstructed mountain views overlooking Dalat.

Each home features a jacuzzi, three fireplaces and 7 to 8 bathrooms.