Casa Lumen
A private clifftop villa, sold entirely through WhatsApp forwards of phone photos — it needed a site restrained enough to match the price point.
Client
Casa Lumen
Category
Luxury Villa
Timeline
11 Days
Services
Web Design
Casa Lumen's owners were letting the villa privately, relying entirely on WhatsApp forwards of phone photos and a broker's word. They didn't want a typical listing site with a hundred thumbnails and a booking calendar — they wanted something that would filter enquiries, not invite a flood of them. “If it feels like Airbnb, we've done it wrong.”
Three decisions that shaped the site.
Restraint as the luxury signal
A warm stone-and-brass palette, true-color photography with no graphic filter, and a wide-tracked serif — deliberately calmer than a typical high-end web build, because a private villa listing needed to read expensive through absence, not flash.
An editorial spread, not a gallery grid
The gallery runs as an asymmetric full-width and split rhythm, closer to a print real estate feature than a scrollable thumbnail wall — because the photography deserved room to breathe, not a grid competing for attention.
By appointment only
'Private viewings,' not 'book now.' The enquiry form and copy throughout frame the process as selective, matching how the property is actually shown — one party at a time, not an open house.
Brief to launch.
11 Days
Start to launch
Days 1–2
Discovery
Reviewed the owners' existing phone photography and verbal pitch to identify the four things that actually sell the villa — privacy, the pool, the light, the staff.
Days 3–5
Design System
Built the stone-and-brass palette and the editorial gallery rhythm the rest of the site would run on.
Days 6–9
Build
Built the spec sheet, gallery spread, amenities list, location band and the private-viewing enquiry form.
Days 10–11
Review & Launch
One round of revisions with the owners, launched privately to their existing broker network.
What the site actually did.
Shared privately with the owners' existing broker network — no public listing, no paid promotion.
Qualified viewing requests, first month
Of visitors scrolled past the gallery
Average time on site
Brief to launch