Zoe Dare Hall
It is known as the St Tropez of South America. For more than a century, Punta del Este, on the southern tip of Uruguay, has been a fashionable playground for wealthy Argentinians and Brazilians in search of white sands and vibrant nightlife. Its population of 10,000 swells to almost 250,000 at the height of summer (our winter). Now a new wave of international developers is hoping that Britons and other Europeans will discover its charms too.

Among them is Natasha Caine, the only child of the actor Sir Michael Caine and his wife, Shakira.

The Uruguayan coast has more than its fair share of luxurious villas, priced at £2m upwards. Caine, 34, and her property-developer husband, Michael Hall, 35, hope to add a new twist with Villalagos, a gated development of 13 villas set in 225 acres at Punta Piedra, between the trendy beachside neighbourhoods of La Barra and Jose Ignacio. Prices start at £1.25m.

“Each property is like a mini farm, called chacra in Uruguay,” says Caine, a former model, who is in charge of interior design. “You feel like you are in the middle of the countryside, but you are right next to the ocean.” Each of the houses (from 6,000 sq ft) has a large courtyard, an infinity pool and a plot of at least 12 acres. They are surrounded by lakes, orchards and vegetable gardens, produce from which can be delivered daily to the owners’ doors.

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Out of season, Punta del Este is quiet. Then, overnight, things explode. “It has a similar warm, dry climate to Cape Town, but it’s far safer,” Caine says. “You see gorgeous Argentinian girls in hot pants waiting on the streets to hitchhike throughout the night from one club to the next.”

Surprisingly, perhaps, for someone who grew up between London and the Hollywood Hills - where Sean Connery, Christopher Reeve and Jack Nicholson would pop into the family home - what she loves about the resort is its lack of pretension. “It is less flashy than St Tropez,” she says. “It has shabby-chic charm. You can go to dinner in your sarong and flip-flops.”

This bohemian air has made the resort popular with celebrities, from Brigitte Bardot in the 1960s to Rupert Everett and Naomi Campbell today. The author Martin Amis spent 2½ years in Jose Ignacio, a quiet but exclusive fishing village to the northeast, with Isabel Fonseca, his half-Uruguayan wife.

Hall, CEO of the London-based developer Obsidian Group, says that Punta del Este’s cachet, together with limited supply of land and strict planning laws, has pushed land prices up by 30%-50% in the past year. “Frontline villa plots start at £500,000, but go one plot behind and you will pay a fifth of that,” he says. “We’ve seen Europeans build holiday homes for about £250,000 all in - extremely good value compared with the Caribbean or South Africa.”

Few European buyers are likely to travel so far for regular holidays - Punta del Este is a 15-hour flight from the UK, via Buenos Aires - so agents are keen to promote the thriving rental market. Hall claims that the best villas can rent for £40,000-£80,000 a month.

Matt Glazier, head of international sales at Winkworth, agrees: “Punta del Este is 7,000 miles from the UK, so British buyers are likely to look at it purely from an investment point of view.” While foreign buyers can get mortgages in Uruguay, average investors - who are typically from the Americas – buy outright. Buying costs are about 3% of the purchase price and there is no capital-gains tax to pay locally.

Another new development hoping to attract British investors is Acqua, a clean-lined beachfront building consisting of 35 flats with home cinemas, wine cellars and infinity pools spilling over large terraces, on the market with Winkworth International. The same agency has two-bedroom flats at Grey Stone, a similarly stylish beachside development, from £854,000.

There are more affordable options inland. Sugar Loaf Ocean Club and Spa has 96 villas on quarter-acre plots, 20 minutes’ drive from the beach, from £89,000, through EM Concepts, a London-based agent (020 8144 6460, www.emconcepts.co.uk).

Yoo Punta del Este has refurbished a 22-storey tower in the city’s bustling art district. Prices for the 203 flats – 80% of which have been sold – start at £50,000. “We’re not frontline water, so we were astonished by how quickly they have flown off the shelf,” says Yoo’s founder, John Hitchcox. “There is a lot of money there, but it’s not dripping with the sort of wealth you see in the south of France. It’s more beautiful and natural.”

Caine is taking her parents and half-sister, Nikki - Michael’s daughter from his first marriage - to Punta del Este for the first time in December.

She and Hall are so taken with Uruguay, they will keep one of the Villalagos houses for themselves. In the meantime, they are moving out of their London home, a mews house on Great Titchfield Street, in the West End. It bears the hallmarks of Caine’s flair for design, with white minimalist interiors, glass walls and a zen-style garden.

It remains to be seen whether the Caine family will want to become more permanent members of Punta del Este’s glam Lat-Am crowd. Or, for that matter, whether the locals are quite ready for the Caines. “When we’re together, particularly if we’re in cabs, which we call sherbet dabs, we all talk to each other in cockney rhyming slang,” Caine explains. “My dad will ask, ‘Have you got any sausage?’ - meaning cash - and one of us will answer, ‘Here’s some rifle [change] for the ice cream [geezer].’ ” What will the locals make of it? Winkworth; 020 7691 4269, www.winkworth.co.uk

Bringing in the Puntas

The refurbished 22-storey Yoo tower, in Punta del Este’s art district, offers a spa, gym, business centre and shuttle bus to the beach. Prices for the 203 flats range from £50,000 to £150,000 through Yoo; 020 7009 4697, www.yoo.com

A gated development of 13 properties set in 225 acres, Villalagos, at Punta Piedra, offers country style on the ocean front. Prices start at £1.25m through Obsidian Group; 020 7499 1300, www.obsidiangroup.co.uk