Al Sarab Villa

Al Sarab means the mirage, which is what the whole resort is named for, and this is the villa that carries the name alone. There are 2 bedrooms in 853 square metres, and the space between them is the whole villa — an indoor and an outdoor living room, a dining room, a terrace under a pergola of poles and matting on cut palm trunks, lanterns on plinths, a run of loungers along a blue-mosaic pool, and grass on both sides of it. The dune ahead fills the horizon and the resort is a low line of buildings off to one side.

It is set up for entertaining rather than for sleeping many: a private entrance so guests do not come through the resort, a fireplace for the nights that get cold, an in-villa barbecue and a butler to run it. The Majlis — a separate 338-square-metre entertaining pavilion seating 20 — can be taken with it. What comes with the villa is substantial: airport transfers both ways for 4, in-villa breakfast, a barbecue dinner with a private chef, a 60-minute Polaris, camel ride or desert drive for 4, an hour on the padel court, and a complimentary helipad landing.