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.
Before the commencement of the project, a lot of research was done on how light influences mood and performance, and the estate villa's design optimises its naturally light-filled spaces. This forms a fundamental aspect of the philosophy of the architectural design of Nurai, which takes its name from the Arabic word nur, meaning "light".
The entrance to the villa is dramatic, with the pool, beach and sea immediately in sight. "People just can't believe the colour of the sea here," says Lesley, who has selected the exact shade of the extraordinary turquoise-blue of the sea around the mangroves for outdoor cushions at the pool and deck area.
The colour palette for the dining, living and pool areas is reflective of the colours of nature and the local landscape, in line with the island's design ethos. The project team discovered that the ancient Greeks also believed that referencing nature in their design environment made them calmer.
All the indoor seating areas of the living and dining room are covered in outdoor fabric by the American company Perennials, in recognition of its immediate proximity to the beach and pool and the challenges that brings to luxury furnishings. "You want it to look a million dollars and yet still want it to be hard wearing," explains Lesley. "I have been using these fabrics for projects for the past six years and they are all incredible; you can take them outside, hose them down and they will still retain a high-end interior look."
Another nod to the inside-out function of the downstairs areas is a non-slip coating applied to the opulent marble flooring to allow for children with wet and sandy feet to run straight in from the beach. All walls are white and glow with reflected light, as mirrors at each end of the room bounce reflections and illumination inward.
Aside from the extraordinary sea views, the focal point of the room has to be the large glass-and-silver-metal chandelier with hanging, crystal-like "icicles", which is by the Portuguese lighting company Serip. The structure is also evocative of the coral motif picked up in the napkins set out on the dining table. The distinct gold wall disc lights, as well as the large leaf lighting piece hung on the opposite wall of the room, are also from Serip, and all are distinctive pieces of art in their own rights. A number of the villa's large canvases were commissioned by Lesley from a Vietnamese art studio.
The master suite on the first floor is the designer's favourite room, especially for its silver-and-black wallpaper, which is from a new range by Zinc Textile. "When I opened the book, I had goosebumps – I just had to have it," enthuses Lesley, who also used Zinc Textile fabric alongside Armani for the room, a key inspiration for the design interior.
Floor-to-ceiling windows open out across the width of the room to the glass-fronted balcony to give unobstructed views of the sea and allow light to flood the dramatic interior.
But if there's one room in the home where magic and whimsy are allowed to reign, it's the suite dedicated to the five young daughters of the family. Lesley worked to a design brief of "pink" and has created a room for "sugar and spice and all things nice", with matching beds and butterflies. The centre point for the room is a rug made from New Zealand wool, which incorporates the girls' names, written in pink.
Nurai Island's villas were marketed with the view that they would be a convenient holiday and weekend location for owners. Yet, already, two families are considering making Nurai their full-time place of residence.
"Originally, they were looking at it only for weekends," reflects Nadia, "but now they have seen the end product, they are thinking of living here."
It's not hard to understand why. Where else could you be in the centre of a world-class, international city and all its attractions, then travel to your island retreat, all within the space of 20 minutes?
