Saturday 23rd June saw The Riviera Group launch its latest project The Riviera Monaco to an enormous crowd of investors, agents, buyers, and partygoers, all eager to see the Monaco showroom combined with famous guests to keep the mood high-end.
Winston Gale and wife Sukanya, of course, were the hosts to their latest creation and they were joined by special guests Ananda who really needs no introduction, long-time famous presenter Elizabeth Sadler, Burin from the legendary Groove Rider music group and Emi Stames, ex-top Thailand supermodel.
As the Champagne flowed, the party attendees also enjoyed diamond earring giveaways, a head-turning fashion show along with VIP guests the Mayor of Pattaya Anan Charoenchasri and former MP and Education Ministry Secretary Chanyuth Heng-trakul who also took to the stage to show their support and appreciation for The Riviera Group’s ongoing contribution to Pattaya’s image and quality offerings.
Masterclass in showroom design
The showroom itself, well it’s fair to say The Riviera Group doesn’t do ordinary showrooms, nor does it just do very good showrooms. The only way Winston and Sukanya do showrooms is to knock the ball right out of the park. Nothing else seems to come close or compare, but then that’s the renowned heart and soul you seem to get with a Riviera project. The showroom, although temporary, is no exception.
The sales office, an already very glamorous place to spend some time, has been open for four months. It now has an extended corridor lined with beautiful old artifact pillars, illuminated glass flooring and enough small, yet significant and relevant, details. You really need to stop walking and try to take it all in. One walk through will never achieve this.
Entering the main lobby area –“an honest representation of the main buildings lobby” Sukanya said – you are hit with a variety of simply beautiful design features. This is where you can lose yourself in the luxury design that is everywhere the eye can find.
Then, we were guided through some enormous 112- year-old wooden doors (five metres tall) where we enter the two ground floor units, a gorgeous two-bedroom and an achingly desirable one-bedroom unit.
These units really are unlike any others we’ve visited and very different compared with previous Riviera units.
Excellent feedback and the risks
Winston provided the answer: “We deliberately wanted our interpretation of Monaco to be brought to life in these show units. It’s therefore a different look to our Wongamat and Jomtien Rivieras. We felt we took some risks with the design but, so far, the feedback has been excellent.”
Design risks? Maybe to the Gales, but I get the feeling these are two people who seem to know what they are doing and find that sweet spot each time. A sexy blend of very old with very new, not an easy thing to put side-by-side as Winston explained, but here they just make it work effortlessly.
We then take to the glamorous spiral staircase that was twinkling all over from the tiny sparkling mosaics placed on every tread, until we reached the first floor only to be greeted by two further extraordinary 26sqm and 29sqm units. Given their size, Winston and Sukanya seem to have masterfully made them as desirable as the much larger units downstairs. Full of character, yet with that ‘just right’ livable touch to them.
I kept thinking of all the awards they have scooped up just in the last year and thought to myself this has the hallmark of being yet another multi-award winner.
Don’t take my word for it though, just go and see for yourself. It simply won’t disappoint.
New project rumours
Pattaya is small, the real estate industry is even smaller, if you sneeze, many will catch a cold. It therefore didn’t take long for me to sniff out the rumour of another Riviera Group project people were talking about hot off the back of Monaco.
Straight to the point, I asked Winston. “Yes, it’s true,” he said. “The project is called (The Riviera) ‘Ocean Drive’. We will be pre-launching it next month. It’s on the highest point of Jomtien’s Second Road, so a different location to that of the Monaco.”
Can you share more with us?
“Sure, now’s the time, actually. It will have 100% sea view units in a 43-storey building with all the usual Riviera facilities and that five-star hotel feel and finish. It’s a little more than 500 units so it should have a slightly more exclusive feel to it like Monaco has. It is a little different to our previous projects where the units are at the 1,000-plus capacity.”
We look forward to giving more detail in a future edition of REm.
