Portobello Mangaratiba

History

Portobello is the second generation of a family that practically invented the Brazilian resort. The pioneer was Carlos de Souza Gomes Borges, who in the 1960s bought land on the Costa Verde and created the Hotel do Frade, in Angra dos Reisi. In 1987, his son Carlos Jardim Borges founded the Portobello Resort e Safárii in Mangaratiba, facing Ilha Grande bay and surrounded by Atlantic Forest mountains. The following year the hotel received the Best Leisure Hotel in Brazil award from the Guia Quatro Rodas; in 2017 it marked thirty years of operation.

Around this hotel operation the residential condominium grew — houses and plots within the same perimeter, served by the same beach, marina, canal and aviation infrastructure. The development gained international profile in the last decade, when the resort hosted delegations for major sporting events: the Italian national team chose Portobello as its base for the 2014 World Cup, and eight Olympic teams set up their headquarters there in 2016. The group also includes the Pousada Porto Imperial, in the historic centre of Paratyi, Marina Portobello, Marina Porto Imperial and Fazenda Portobello.

• Concept: a farm resort that became a residential address — the resident buys the house and receives, along with it, a private beach, marina, canals and a leisure structure sized for a hotel.
• Curiosities: Portobello is, according to the group itself, the only resort in Brazil to have a safari — around 500 animals from Brazilian, European and African fauna, in an open-air zoo within the property. And it is the only one in Rio de Janeiro state with three means of access: by land, by sea and by air, with a licensed airstrip.

Architecture and aesthetics

The resort’s architecture is declaredly inspired by the Polynesian style — broad, steeply pitched roofs, exposed timber, cross-ventilation and decoration in harmony with the forest —, and it sets the tone for the place. In the residential condominium there is no single design: the houses are built by each owner, and the repertoire ranges from the 1990s beach house to the contemporary residence of straight lines, large glazed openings and infinity pools. What organises the development is the farm’s geography: the one-kilometre stretch of white sand and calm sea, the navigable canals that reach into the land and allow mooring in front of the house, and the Atlantic Forest hillsides that close off the back. It is a low-density layout — the forest is not landscaping, it is neighbourhood.

Aesthetics and scarcity

Technical specifications

• Towers and units: not a tower. A horizontal condominium of houses and plots, laid out within a farm estate with pastures, rivers and preserved Atlantic Forest, alongside the operation of Portobello Resort e Safárii.
• Floor areas: variable, as this involves individual construction on plots. No typology is declared by the development.
• Parking spaces: according to each house.
• Structural highlights: private beach of one kilometre of white sand and calm sea; navigable canals with direct access from the residence; own marina; licensed airstrip (SDPA code, 900 x 30 m) and helipad; safari with around 500 animals; small farm; two FIFA-standard football pitches; integrated security system with access control and radio and video monitoring.
• Registry and parameters: condominium on the Rio de Janeiro coastline, outside the scope of the urban planning parameters covered by the São Paulo survey. Registry jurisdiction not confirmed by any source — the field is left blank.

Leisure and facilities

• One-kilometre private beach
• Marina and navigable canals
• Ecological safari with around 500 animals (paid excursion, extra charge)
• Small farm
• Pools, including a children’s pool
• Sports courts and FIFA-standard football pitches
• Resort dining and children’s leisure
• Airstrip and helipad

Location and surroundings

Points of interest · distances in metres

Access

• By land: BR-101 (Rodovia Rio–Santos), km 434. The group publishes 110 km to Rio de Janeiro, 380 km to São Paulo and 500 km to Belo Horizonte.
• By sea: own marina, hailed on VHF channel 68.
• By air: paved airstrip and helipad on the property.

Mangaratiba: the address

Mangaratibai is the municipality that sits exactly halfway between Rio and São Paulo, at the entrance to the Costa Verde, and that position is a good part of its value. From there you can see Ilha Grande across the bay, and the Serra do Mar drops to the water without leaving any flat land — the same geography that shapes the landscape also limits development, which has kept the coastline in a state little else in the Southeast still has. Road access is the BR-101, the old Rio–Santos highway, the only land route in the region and, on peak-season weekends, its bottleneck. That is why the great addresses of Mangaratiba are organised around marinas and aviation: the boat and the plane are not an accessory, they are the real alternative to the road. Mangaratiba borders Angra dos Reisi and is less than an hour from the municipality’s centre, within the same bay arc.