Nurai Island, Abu Dhabi, is a 10-minute boat ride from an air-conditioned jetty house on Saadiyat Island. As we board and speed away, past the mangroves, all thoughts of the bustle of the city melt away. Rounding a corner, we catch our first glimpse of the private, beachfront estates and water villas of Zaya Nurai Island, and could be forgiven for thinking that we’ve been transported to a luxury resort in the Seychelles.
This is Abu Dhabi’s most exclusive address: all 23 residential, waterfront villas – each costing upwards of Dh20 million – on the 4.3-million-square-foot island have been sold. Nurai Island’s master plan includes 32 luxury boutique retreats for hotel guests, a spa, restaurants, a marina, a non-motorised water sports centre, a yoga studio, a gymnasium, a tennis court, a helipad and more.
The resort and living environment have been designed for a community of successful, discerning individuals who want somewhere they can really relax, explains Nadia Zaal, the chief executive and co-founder of Zaya Retreats. “The wives had been saying: ‘We keep having to cancel our holidays.’ So wouldn’t it be amazing to give them a holiday environment, closer to home, which they could use more often?”
Just 20 minutes from Abu Dhabi, or an hour from Downtown Dubai, the island getaway was envisaged as the perfect antidote to city life – without international flights and extensive travel.
Each of the island’s private residences sits on a generous plot – up to 65,000 square feet – and has uninterrupted views of the Arabian Gulf, not to mention the occasional dolphin.
Nadia has worked on the island’s development since its acquisition in 2008, and explains that they wanted to create a “virgin island; the rationale behind the design was that you felt like it was integrated into the landscape and wasn’t harsh on the eye”.
Curved, eco-friendly “grass” roofing seamlessly joins banks of planted grasses to pull the estate villas into the island topography. Planting is still in progress, but this has already bedded the architecture to the land, creating an aspect that is both natural and enticing.
The island’s only hotel, Zaya Nurai Island by Zaya Retreats, is due to open in the fourth quarter of this year, and will provide the island’s residents with full concierge services, housekeeping, maintenance, security and catering. When a new homeowner queried what he needed to bring for his first trip, Nadia responded: “Just bring your clothes, that’s it; everything else is taken care of.” There are no cars on the island – residents can arrive either by a regular or on-demand speedboat service; there's also provision for private yacht mooring. On-land transport is strictly by buggy only.
To create a destination that’s beautiful, functional and unique, and a location where people can “disconnect in order to reconnect with what’s important”, Nadia sought those who could respond on an emotional level to the vision that they had for Zaya Nurai Island. She decided to “take a chance”, not with an architect, but with a product designer – Drow of Drow Studio – as she felt an immediate rapport with the young designer and his ability to think differently. Drow worked on developing the concepts for Nurai’s architecture, creating the desired "virgin-island" homes, with buildings melded into the landscape.
Drow joined forces with AW2, the Paris-based architects responsible for a number of award-winning resort projects including The Nam Hai in Vietnam. The results speak for themselves.
No two homes are the same, as owners select various permutations and functions for their rooms, as well as the hard finishes for their properties.
We visit an estate villa, where Nadia’s mother, Lesley Zaal, an interior designer and the founder of Etcetera Living, is putting the final touches to the interiors and pool area of the property. The owner and his family are due to arrive shortly to view their new home.
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