The porch table
The sun comes in early. This is where the real talking happens, before the day starts.
7 to 14people, one group only
5 minfrom the airport
7 hainside the Turia Natural Park
20 hof backup connection
28seated under climate control
Invoicein the company’s name
365days a year
€1,099the whole villa, per night
Companies
Your team works all day. Nobody would guess it
What a company asks, answered before you write.
«We had a corporate get together with 10 people attending and we had plenty of space to work together.»
When, and how many of you?
We'll tell you if it's free and what it costs. No details needed.
Seven hectares for one single team
Everything happens inside the estate
The breakfast
The meeting
The walk
The dinner
The midnight talk
What a team actually comes here to do
Together without being on top of each other
A company paying for a retreat is not paying for a holiday. Everyone knows they are working, however good a time they are having.
What almost always needs fixing is trust. A director who hears things too late, and a team who believe that raising a hand counts against them. That does not get fixed in a room with a projector.
In a hotel the room has a shift: you have to vacate it at one because lunch service is coming in, and the conversation that was going somewhere stops dead. At six the group breaks up, everyone to their room, and with luck a few of them meet again at dinner.
Here there is no shift, no room to vacate, nobody coming in to set up while you talk. It stops when the group stops. And nobody has to be in the same place either: people spread out across the estate and come back together on their own, without anyone organising it and without us stepping in.
The bedrooms have televisions. In company groups they are never switched on.
Eight reasons we have seen
Why a team gets together away from the office
Taking stock of the year
Closing what has happened and ordering what is coming, away from the place where it happened.
Getting to know each other
Teams who work together every day and have never eaten together without an agenda.
Presenting or reviewing a product
Show it, take it apart and argue about it without anyone watching the clock for the next room.
Launching a strategy
The two days that decide the year ahead, where everyone has to leave saying the same thing.
Celebrating a deal
A contract signed, a funding round, a project delivered. Celebrate it and sleep here.
Working on the group’s skills
Real training, with the group split in two or three and room for each part.
Teamwork
Cooking a paella together or throwing a piece on the potter’s wheel teaches more than a workshop.
Understanding each person better
Some teams come with a facilitator, a coach or a psychologist. The house is set up for that work: room to split the group, corners for a conversation between two, and places where nobody can hear you.
Nine places to sit down
Where people end up working
The long table
Fourteen people seated at once, with room for the laptop and the coffee. It is the table the whole group comes back to.
The marble table by the pool
Beside the water, with the wrought-iron chairs. Nobody would call it a place of work and it is where meetings of three or four end up.
The bougainvillea pergola
White bougainvillea and jasmine overhead, the garden beyond. At midday it is the shade everyone looks for.
The beer tap
Craft beer on tap, out in the garden. The conversation that does not come out in a meeting room comes out here, and that is work too.
The cactus courtyard
Several tables in the dry courtyard, set apart from the rest. It is where people go when they need to talk without being overheard.
The gazebo in the kitchen garden
Tables under the canopy, among the vegetable beds, with the lights on as the afternoon closes in.
The garden room
Enclosed, climate-controlled and seating twenty-eight. It is where long days end up when it is cold outside, and where the projector goes if it is needed.
Dinner, afterwards
Nobody takes the car back to a hotel. You have dinner at home and carry on talking.
Nothing to organise, nobody to ask
What is already here and does not have to be requested
The pool
Private, clean and open all twelve months. Not heated.
The wood-fired hot tub
For eight people, outdoors, all year round. You light it and that is that.
The three fireplaces
With the wood already there. No need to ask for it or pay for it separately.
The billiard table
Eighteenth century, and it gets used. It is not an ornament.
Table tennis
Outside, next to the garden. It appears by itself after lunch.
The library
A hundred and twenty volumes on Spanish and Valencian art, and armchairs to read them in.
The whole estate
Seven hectares of estate, with its mandarin groves and its tracks. You go out walking without telling anyone.
And whatever you think of
There are more games and more places than fit on this page. Just ask.
An example, not a programme
A day, mapped out
08:30 · BreakfastBread baked that morning, eggs from the hens and fruit from the estate, out on the porch.
09:45 · Out to the fieldsForty-five minutes by car. The transport is arranged from here.
10:30 · The aqueductTwo hours between the Peña Cortada walk and the picnic halfway along. Or you drop down to eat in one of the villages nearby.
16:00 · Back at the VillaMassage, wood-fired hot tub, pool, table tennis. Or nothing at all, which counts too.
20:00 · DinnerA wood-fired Valencian paella class with José Zafra, or an Italian night: Aperol, sourdough pizza and Italian ice cream.
23:00 · WhiskiesAnd chocolates, by the fire. This is the hour when people say the things they did not say in the morning.
Neither a fixed package nor a list of sights
The work goes wherever the company puts it
Some teams work the whole morning after breakfast and go out in the afternoon. Others go out first and sit down when they get back. Others shut themselves away for both days and only come down for dinner. The house has no opinion.
What does not change is that a day like that is work too. Walking for two hours with someone from your team does more for trust than an afternoon session, which is why the walk is not the break in the programme: it is part of the programme.
The outings — the Roman aqueduct at Peña Cortada, the Castle of Chirel, Valencia with a historian — are arranged from the house, with transport, times and food. Nobody has to find parking or work out where the path goes up.
Privacy is not an extra
One group only. No reception desk, no timetables
The house is not shared. While the team is here there is no other group, no check-in desk, no concierge who knows who has come down for breakfast. Nobody walks past a meeting on the way to their room.
The estate is seven hectares, with working Clemenules mandarin groves, inside the Turia Natural Park, and 4,500 square metres of garden. You cannot see the neighbour’s house because there is no neighbour’s house. A conversation in the garden is a private conversation, without having to find a room to have it in.
You book directly with us, with no intermediaries, and we issue the invoice ourselves. The price you see is the price: there is no commission for anyone in between.
A filter, not a ceiling
Seven to fourteen: the size of group that decides things
A board, an executive committee, a team that has to decide something: almost always between eight and fourteen people. It is an awkward size for the market. A hotel wants forty and an events estate wants a hundred and twenty.
This house is sized for that group and not for a bigger one. Fourteen people fit around the same table, hearing each other without raising their voices, and then spread out across the house without getting in each other’s way. With thirty, neither of those things would work.
That is why we do not take larger groups to sleep. It is not a limitation we play down: it is the reason this works for people who come here to work.
What gets prepared before anyone arrives
Arriving
Staggered arrivals, night flights, somebody turning up a day early. It is arranged so that nobody waits at the gate with a suitcase.
Setting the house up
If the stay has a particular reason, the Villa is prepared for that reason. It is what we do anyway for anyone coming to celebrate something.
Assigning spaces
There are several sitting rooms, an enclosed climate-controlled garden room for twenty-eight and a room with a projector and a large screen. What gets used for what is decided before you arrive.
Someone on hand
There is a person available to the group to sort out a technical question or a last-minute purchase. It is what reassures whoever has put the day together most.
Space and access
A hundred metres of asphalted drive by twelve wide, and seven hectares of open land around it. A van fits, a trailer fits, or a vehicle that has to be demonstrated on or off the asphalt.
Meals
A team that is working does not cook at midday. It is arranged in advance: that is how the kitchen works at Villa Paula.
The invoice
An invoice with VAT itemised, in the company’s name. It is what almost no rental house offers and the first thing any finance department asks.
A hundred by twelve, and seven hectares
Room for what does not fit in a hotel
The interior drive is private, asphalted and a hundred metres long by twelve wide. Twenty vehicles fit, and so does a trailer, a small rigging lorry or a car that needs to run on a hard surface.
Around it there are seven hectares of open land. A dirt course can be laid out there to test off-road vehicles, arranged in advance. It is private ground: nobody is watching and there is no permission to ask for.
There is also a garage and an electric charging point. They are the kind of thing nobody thinks about until they are needed, and then there is no alternative anywhere nearby.
100 × 12 mof private asphalted drive
Minutes from the exhibition centre
If the team is here for a trade fair
The exhibition centre is ten minutes from the airport, and the Villa five. A team of six or eight people here to build a stand can sleep together, park the vehicle inside, have dinner at the house after the build and leave in the morning without crossing the city.
It is the opposite of being split across rooms in a transit hotel, and it works out cheaper once the team is more than four people.
The minimum is two nights. So a team can arrive on Tuesday and leave on Thursday, which is how trade fairs run and exactly the days a hotel charges most for.
The three things people really worry about
The connection going down
Mesh fibre indoors and in the garden, three wired network points and a 5G backup with twenty hours of battery. We bought it after a night when everything went down, not out of a catalogue.
Rain
The garden room is enclosed, climate-controlled and has a stove, and seats twenty-eight. Inside the house there are several sitting rooms. A wet day does not change the plan.
Something going wrong
We offer 24-hour attention, seven days a week, throughout the stay. Over these years the power has gone and the water has been cut off, and nobody went without dinner or without a shower.
What people ask most
How much does it cost?
From €1,099 a night for the whole villa, VAT included, with a minimum of two nights. That figure covers the entire house, the sitting rooms, the garden room, the gardens and the estate. Meals and experiences are quoted separately.
Do you invoice in the company’s name?
Yes, with VAT itemised. It is the first thing any finance department asks, and what almost no rental house can offer.
What is the minimum stay?
Two nights. A team can arrive on Tuesday and leave on Thursday.
Where does the team meet?
Wherever it likes. There are several sitting rooms, an enclosed climate-controlled garden room for twenty-eight with a projector and a large screen, a long table for fourteen, three fireplaces, a porch and the whole garden. What gets used for what is decided before you arrive, and then changed as you go.
Can you work in the garden?
Yes. The fibre reaches indoors and out through a mesh, so you can work just as well at the long table, on the porch or at the marble table beside the pool.
Do you organise the activities?
The ones that have to be prepared, yes: the paella class, the potter’s wheel, the flamenco, the massages and the trips out into the countryside. The rest is already here and gets used whenever you feel like it, without telling anyone.
What happens if it rains?
The garden room is enclosed, climate-controlled and has a wood-burning stove, and seats twenty-eight. Inside there are several sitting rooms and a room with a projector and a large screen.
And if the connection goes down?
Mesh fibre indoors and in the garden, three wired network points and a 5G backup with twenty hours of battery. We bought it after a night when everything went down.
Is there room for a van or a trailer?
Yes. The interior drive is private and asphalted, a hundred metres by twelve, and holds twenty vehicles as well as a car with a trailer or a small rigging lorry. There is a garage and an electric charging point.
R.S.V.P.
What to ask for in advance
None of this is compulsory and none of it has a form. You tell us on WhatsApp and it is sorted before you arrive.
Staggered arrivalsR.S.V.P.
Setting the Villa up for the occasionR.S.V.P.
Assigning working spacesR.S.V.P.
Meals during the working dayR.S.V.P.
A paella or pottery class for the teamR.S.V.P.
A trip out with transport and a picnicR.S.V.P.
Massages at the VillaR.S.V.P.
A van or a trailerR.S.V.P.
An invoice in the company’s nameR.S.V.P.
The minimum is two nights, so a team can arrive on Tuesday and leave on Thursday.
Write on WhatsApp
Tell us what your team needs
The quickest way is to write on WhatsApp with the dates and the number of people. You get us, not a form.
Tell us what you need
We reply the same day, with a concrete proposal and a closed price. These details are enough.