Area guide · The village on the Benahavís hillside
La Heredia
A village built whole in the nineteen eighties by two brothers, on a hillside their family had owned since the age of Málaga iron. Lanes, a working square, and the coast ten minutes below.
in La Heredia today
for a house in the village
on the residents’ own record
to San Pedro and the coast
The place
A village someone drew whole, and then finished
La Heredia is the village on the Ronda road side of Benahavís, a fold of hillside about two hundred and fifty metres up, where pastel houses stack around stone dressed lanes and a square that actually works: café tables, a fountain, neighbours who know each other’s names. San Pedro and the coast are about ten minutes downhill.
It looks centuries old and it is not, and that is the point rather than the catch. It was designed and built as a village, outright, in the nineteen eighties, by an architect and an interior designer who were brothers, on land their family had held since the eighteen hundreds. It finished at just over two hundred houses and then stopped, which is why it still reads as one place rather than a collection of phases.
This guide sets out how that came to be, what the official register says about it, what living here is actually like, and what the numbers say, led by the asking prices, which are the village’s own.
A cobbled square in La Heredia, the village name on a ceramic plaque over the niche. It was built in the nineteen eighties to work like a village, and it does.
Where exactly it is
On the Ronda road, above San Pedro
The hillside read the way it is driven, up the A-397 from San Pedro. Monte Halcones is the first neighbour on the climb, La Heredia sits on its fold at about two hundred and fifty metres with Las Colinas de la Heredia alongside, El Madroñal’s forest rises directly above, and Benahavís village is a quarter of an hour further into the hills.
- 1La HerediaThe village itself, around its registered square
- 2El MadroñalThe gated cork oak estate directly above
- 3Monte HalconesThe neighbouring urbanisation just below on the same road
- 4Benahavís villageThe old pueblo, fifteen minutes further up
- 5La QuintaThe golf valley on the next ridge east
- 6San Pedro de AlcántaraThe town at the foot of the road, ten minutes down
Orthophoto PNOA © Instituto Geográfico Nacional de España. Rotated so the area reads across the frame; the north mark keeps it honest. Pins mark the centre of each place, not a boundary.
There was nothing here
A forested fold of hillside, then a village, all at once
The same frame of hillside, flown twice, seventy years apart. In 1956 it is closed forest and the thread of the Ronda road. The village arrives essentially whole in the eighties, and the last frame is very close to all there will ever be.
Nothing was added to these frames and nothing was moved. The only thing that changes is the moment a village arrives in the forest. Historic and current imagery © Instituto Geográfico Nacional de España, both rendered through one frame at one scale.
How it came to be
An iron fortune bought the forest, a decorator built the village
The name on the square is the place to start. Manuel Agustín Heredia came south from a village in La Rioja, and by 1840 he was Spain’s leading iron producer, with furnaces at La Concepción near Marbella and La Constancia on the beach at Málaga employing some two thousand people between them. Furnaces of that age burned charcoal, and the family bought forested hillsides here in the early 1800s, dense with pine and cork oak, as fuel for the works.
The family and this municipality were joined long before the village was. One of Heredia’s sons, Ricardo, a book collector whose library became one of the most famous of his century, was created Conde de Benahavís by King Alfonso XII in 1875, so the town’s own name became the family’s title. A generation on, a Parladé Heredia built the family house at Alcuzcuz, on the same stretch of the Ronda road, for his mother, a daughter of the industrialist.
Then, around 1980, two of Heredia’s descendants did something no one else on this coast has done as completely. Francisco Parladé, an architect, and his brother Jaime, by then one of Spain’s best known interior designers, the man the design press called the dandy of interior design, whose clients ran from the Rothschilds to Julio Iglesias, chose a horseshoe shaped fold of the family hillside and built an Andalusian village from scratch. Floors were laid in marble and terracotta, ceramic tiles and ironwork were recovered from across Andalucía, and the houses were drawn with bedrooms below, where it is cooler, and living rooms above, where the view is.
The village finished at just over two hundred houses and has stayed finished. Jaime Parladé lived at Alcuzcuz until his death in 2015, and Benahavís has since written both generations into its official street register: the square is Plaza Don Manuel Agustín Heredia and one of the lanes is Calle Don Jaime Parladé. In 2025 the town hall spent nearly half a million euros repairing the lanes to their original specification, which tells you the place is treated as infrastructure to keep, not scenery to replace.
Houses hold hands here rather than standing apart, stepping up the fold in one composition. That is the whole idea of the place.
Houses in the finished village, on the residents’ own record. It was built whole, and then it stopped.
The founder’s son Ricardo was created Conde de Benahavís, a century before the family built the village.
Living here
Built for February as well as August
The square is the difference between this and every gated estate on the hill. The residents’ own record lists bars, cafés and restaurants in the village, fresh produce, two community pools with one heated for winter, and plazas and fountains threaded between the houses. The lanes themselves are municipal infrastructure: in 2025 the town hall relaid three of them to the original specification, concrete inlaid with limestone and edged with herringbone granite cobbles, a four month job it tendered at over half a million euros. Even the Three Kings’ published route through the municipality stops at the village entrance each January.
Schools are down the hill and close. Laude San Pedro International College takes children from two and a half to eighteen in San Pedro, about ten minutes away, Aloha College in Nueva Andalucía was among the first schools in Spain to offer the International Baccalaureate, and Colegio Atalaya sits on the Estepona side. The school run from here goes downhill in the morning and uphill home, against the traffic.
Healthcare works at three levels. Benahavís runs its own Centro de Salud, the regional public hospital, Hospital Costa del Sol, serves the municipality from the A-7, and privately Quirónsalud Marbella is a short drive east while Helicópteros Sanitarios has run a 24 hour home doctor and ambulance service from Puerto Banús since 1988.
Getting about is one road, and it is a good one. The A-397 puts San Pedro about ten minutes down, Puerto Banús about twelve, and Benahavís village, the self declared Dining Room of Andalucía with the region’s highest concentration of restaurants, about fifteen minutes up. Málaga airport is about an hour. There is no train on this coast, so a car is part of life here.
One of the paved squares the houses are drawn around. The village keeps its own life through the winter, which is rarer on this hillside than the view.
Schools
Laude San Pedro International College about ten minutes down; Aloha College in Nueva Andalucía; Colegio Atalaya on the Estepona side.
Healthcare
Benahavís’s own Centro de Salud, Hospital Costa del Sol on the A-7, and a 24 hour home doctor service from Puerto Banús.
Getting about
Ten minutes to San Pedro, twelve to Banús, fifteen up to Benahavís village, about an hour to Málaga airport.
The square
Bars, cafés, restaurants and fresh produce on the residents’ own record, with two community pools, one heated.
What things cost
What is asked, and what was paid
Two numbers both get called “the price” here, and they are kept apart. Registered sale prices are only published by postcode, and postcode 29679 covers La Heredia together with the rest of the Benahavís hillside, so the deed figure describes the hill rather than the village. The asking prices are La Heredia’s own.
Asking prices, per square metre
The bar is the middle half of what is being asked for each type in La Heredia right now, from the cheapest quarter to the dearest. The number in the row is the typical figure. Nothing here has necessarily sold at these prices; that is what the panel beside it is for.
Asking prices per built square metre, resale stock listed in La Heredia, 54 properties in total, as at 8 August 2026. From our own records.
What buyers actually paid
Registered sale prices are only published by postcode, and postcode 29679 covers La Heredia together with the rest of the Benahavís hillside. So the deed figure below is for the whole district rather than for La Heredia alone. Across it, homes completed this year at a typical €4,529 per square metre.
Read the two panels together and the lesson is the usual one: asking prices run over standing stock, which quietly accumulates every overpriced home that never sells, while deeds count only what traded. The gap between them is mostly that selection effect, not a discount waiting to be claimed. The full postcode picture, by property type, is on the La Quinta page.
- Postcode 29679, all homes€4,529619 deeds
- Postcode 29679, apartments€3,627457 deeds
- Postcode 29679, houses€5,498162 deeds
JUST Real Estate analysis of registered deed prices, Portal Estadístico del Notariado, rolling 12 months, captured 15 August 2026. Postcode 29679 covers La Heredia together with the rest of the Benahavís hillside. Prices are moving: the official house price index for Andalucía rose 4.1 per cent in the year to 2025 Q4 (INE); the index is not published below regional level.
What you can buy
The stock that actually exists here
for sale in La Heredia
80% of the stock
6% of the stock
6% of the stock
No official body publishes what is available to buy, only what has already sold, so this part comes from our own intelligence. Through our network memberships we see every resale property listed through an agency on this coast, which means we know both what is genuinely on the market in La Heredia and where the same home is being advertised more than once. This covers resale stock only, not new construction sold directly by developers.
The shape of what is for sale says what the village is. Nearly everything listed is a house, but a house here means a village house on a lane, sharing walls with its neighbours and drawn as part of one composition, rather than a villa alone in a garden. A small handful of apartments, penthouses and townhouses make up the rest, and there are no plots at all, because the village was finished forty years ago and there is nothing left to draw one on.
- Houses and villas4380% of listings
- Townhouses36% of listings
- Apartments36% of listings
- Penthouses36% of listings
Resale stock listed in La Heredia as at 8 August 2026, from our own records. Treat it as accurate to within five to ten per cent: a few near identical apartments in the same building are not always recognised as the same home when the sources are brought together.
Asking prices and supply as at 8 August 2026 · deed prices captured 15 August 2026 · refreshed each week
La Heredia compared to nearby areas
The Benahavís hillside ladder, in order
One hillside, one deed postcode, and addresses that do not trade level. A house in La Heredia asks €3,125/m². Directly above, El Madroñal trades at €8,491/m² and La Zagaleta at €8,698/m², so the village is the established way in to a hill whose estates ask well over twice as much per metre.
| Address | Typical asking, per m² | Listed | Running costs, per year | Character |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| La Zagaleta | €8,698 | 8 houses and villas | €15,977 | The private estate on the high ground, the benchmark for space |
| La Quinta | €8,672 | 347 houses and villas | €4,125 | The golf valley east of the road, apartments to large villas |
| El Madroñal | €8,491 | 185 houses and villas | €6,784 | The gated cork oak estate directly above the village |
| Benahavís village | €3,818 | 16 houses and villas | too few to say | The old pueblo at the head of the Guadalmina gorge |
| La Heredia | €3,125 | 43 houses and villas | too few to say | A finished village of houses around a working square |
Typical is the median asking price per built square metre for the type of home most listed in each area, named beside the count (houses and villas, or apartments), as at 8 August 2026; running costs are the median annual IBI plus community charge where enough listings publish them. From our own records.
The estates above sell privacy by the hectare and the village sells belonging by the lane, and they are honestly different purchases rather than rungs of one thing. If what you want is a gate and ground, look up the hill. If what you want is somewhere with a square that works in February at a fraction of the price per metre, this is the address the hillside built for it.
Wider context: our guide to Benahavís, area by area, and our property market data behind every figure on this page.
Who buys here
Three buyers, and what La Heredia gives each of them
The year-round home.
This is what the village was drawn for. There is a working square rather than a clubhouse, neighbours close enough to borrow from, the international schools of San Pedro and Nueva Andalucía about ten to fifteen minutes down the hill, and the town hall’s Three Kings route stops at the village entrance each January. Very few addresses on this coast are this alive in February.
The holiday home.
A village house locks up more easily than a villa, the community pools and the square are kept without you, and you arrive to somewhere with life in it rather than a gate and a silence. For anyone who has found a big plot more burden than pleasure, this is usually the answer.
The long hold.
The village has been complete at just over two hundred houses since it was built, and there is no land inside it to add more. Its asking prices also sit far below the gated estates on the same hillside, so it is the established way in to an address band that trades much higher directly above it.
Common questions
Questions we are asked about La Heredia
Who built La Heredia?
Two brothers, descendants of the Málaga industrialist Manuel Agustín Heredia whose family had owned this forested hillside since the early 1800s: the architect Francisco Parladé and the interior designer Jaime Parladé, who built it as a complete Andalusian village around 1980. Both generations are on the official street register, the square as Plaza Don Manuel Agustín Heredia and a lane as Calle Don Jaime Parladé.
Is La Heredia a real village or an urbanisation?
Legally it is a registered urbanisation of Benahavís, UR La Heredia on the Catastro street register. On the ground it was designed, built and finished as a village of just over two hundred houses around a working square, and the town hall maintains its lanes as public infrastructure, most recently a four month repair of three of them in 2025.
How far is La Heredia from the beach and the airport?
San Pedro de Alcantara and its beach are about ten minutes down the Ronda road, Puerto Banús about twelve minutes, and Málaga airport about an hour. Benahavís village and its restaurants are about fifteen minutes further up the same road.
What type of property for sale in La Heredia is most common?
Village houses, overwhelmingly. Of the 54 resale properties currently listed here, 43 are houses, with 3 apartments, 3 penthouses and 3 townhouses making up most of the rest. There are no plots, because the village has been complete since it was built.
Why is the registered sale price for La Heredia so different from the asking prices?
Because registered deed prices are only published by postcode, and postcode 29679 covers La Heredia together with the rest of the Benahavís hillside, including much larger and much more expensive estates. The deed figure describes the whole hill; the asking figures on this page are the village’s own.
What is Las Colinas de la Heredia?
The small neighbouring community on the same fold of hillside, built in a sympathetic style alongside the original village and generally read as part of the same address. It appears in no official register we can reach, so we treat it with La Heredia and check any specific house there against the Catastro parcel map.
For sale now
Current property for sale in La Heredia
A selection of what is for sale in La Heredia right now. Every home we are listing here, with asking prices, is on the page for property for sale in La Heredia.
2 bedroom ground floor apartment for sale in La Heredia, Benahavis
- 2 beds
- 2 baths
- Interior: 128 m²
3 bedroom town house for sale in La Heredia, Benahavis
- 3 beds
- 2 baths
2 bedroom apartment for sale in La Heredia, Benahavis
- 2 beds
- 2 baths
Free download
The Marbella Buyers Guide
Everything a buyer needs before the first viewing in La Heredia or anywhere else on the coast: the purchase process step by step, the taxes and fees, the checks that decide whether a property is sound, and how the market has actually been behaving.
- ProcessReservation, private contract, completion at the notary, and the timings between them.
- CostsTransfer tax, VAT on new build, notary, registry and legal fees, worked through on a real price.
- ChecksCadastre, land registry, planning status, community accounts and running costs.
Prefer to read it online? The buyers guide page. Every figure on this page sits in our property market data.
Talk to us
Tell us how you want to live on this hillside
La Heredia, Las Colinas next door and the gated estates above suit very different people, and the difference is not only price. Tell us what the days should look like, and we will send you the houses that deliver it, with the honest drawbacks of each and the numbers in front of you before you view.
A person reads this and a person replies, usually the same day. No automated drip, no passing your details to another agency, and no obligation to view anything.
We have 25 years of experience in this market.
