Making Waves

A stately pleasuredome is piquing interest in Porto.

- Daven Wu

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It’s easy to imagine why Avenida de Montevideu was once such a choice address for Porto’s well-heeled upper class. A breezy 20-minute drive from the Portuguese city’s denser center, the long esplanade in the Foz do Douro neighborhood featured an ornate necklace of 19th-century palatial mansions whose grand fin de siècle façades and sprawling gardens serenely faced the broad stretch of beach and the Atlantic beyond. Only a handful of these stately homes have survived Porto’s regeneration, but the debut of the 68-room Villa Foz shows how a thoughtful and light-handed architectural intervention can so vividly rejuvenate a faded pile.