Villa Aurelia

The house.

Very few houses in Casa de Campo sleep twenty-eight without feeling like a hotel. Villa Aurelia is one of them.

Seven air-conditioned bedrooms, eight bathrooms, fourteen beds. It was a private house for years — the sanctuary of a well-known family whose name we are not at liberty to give — and it is now available to take.

Inside, the ceilings are high and open to the beams, and the floors are coral stone cut from this coast. The living rooms are large enough that twenty-eight people are not on top of each other, and the gardens are private enough that nobody is looking in.

Seven rooms, fourteen beds.

Bedrooms 5 and 6 connect, which is the arrangement families ask us for and rarely find — parents next door to children without a corridor in between. Beyond that it takes two or three families comfortably, or a wedding party, or a milestone birthday where everybody stays under one roof.

Casa de Campo is seven thousand gated acres on the south-east coast, and Villa Aurelia is inside it. Minitas beach, the marina and Altos de Chavón are all a short cart ride — nobody needs a car, and the children can be let out of your sight in a way they cannot be almost anywhere else.

Three golf courses, Teeth of the Dog among them. Tennis, polo, riding, boats out of the marina. Twelve minutes from La Romana airport if you are flying privately, fifty from Punta Cana if you are not.

Groups of this size usually end up in two houses or a block of hotel rooms, and both arrangements quietly ruin the point of travelling together. Twenty-eight people in one house, with a kitchen, staff and somewhere to sit down at the same table, is a different holiday.

It is also the sort of booking where the logistics matter more than the photographs. Fourteen beds have to be made up correctly, twenty-eight people have to eat, and somebody has to know which of them does not eat shellfish. That is our part.

The week around the house.

The house is the beginning. Before you land it is opened, cooled and stocked to a list you sent us. There is a car at the aircraft. The staff have been briefed on your family, and next time nobody will ask you again.

After that: the boat, the tee times, the trainer at six-forty, the table on Thursday. Concierge is included and never billed — how we work with houses.

Pools

Two. One in the courtyard at the house, one out in the gardens under the palapas.

Privacy

Gated grounds, screened by mature planting.

Staff

Full household staff. Chef available — tell us how the group eats.

Connecting rooms

Bedrooms 5 and 6 connect. Useful with children.

Getting here

Twelve minutes from La Romana (LRM), fifty from Punta Cana (PUJ).

Resort access

Villa Owners Club registration and daily resort fee, settled in advance.

Golf

Teeth of the Dog, Dye Fore and The Links. Tee times held on request.

Ask about Villa Aurelia