1. A cove of your own Guana Island, British Virgin Islands
An 850-acre islet located less than a mile off Tortola, Guana Island is also a 15-room resort built in the 1930s. When the Jarecki family of New York purchased the island in 1975, the property had charm, but needed attention–everything was falling apart. Today, the operation is a smooth-running upscale establishment.
But, if hair dryers, tuxedoed waiters and air conditioning are what you seek, Guana Island is probably not the ideal escape. Wildlife is more common than nightlife–you’re unlikely to find an exterminator on the office speed-dial list. But for those who like their lodgings immersed into the “natural Caribbean,” Guana is a touchstone for relaxation.
Sprinkled over the saddle of a breezy ridge, several hundred feet above sea level, rooms are positioned at varying distances from the main lodge. Each differs somewhat, boasting varying views, layouts and seclusion, but what they share in common is a vaguely Greek Cycladian personality: whitewashed stone walls with shutters trimmed in bright blue. Each room has a personal terrace furnished with wicker and framed with oleander and frangipani.
The food at Guana is straightforward, unfussy and satisfying. Dinner is served at shared or individual tables The arrangement works well to introduce Guana’s new guests to loyal repeaters. A honor bar is a gathering place for sunsets.
If evenings are convivial, it’s easy to find privacy during the day. White Bay is a luminous, one-third-mile-long beach that ranks with the Caribbean’s most lovely and tranquil (it’s a steep five-minute walk or two-minute shuttle ride from the rooms down to the sand). Lunch down on the beach consists of pasta, roti and tasty cold salads. But there are six more coves ringing Guana’s shores–most of which are reached only by trail or boat.
There are miles of trails to explore, along with tennis courts (one omni, one clay), snorkeling, kayaks, sailboats and windsurfing.
You may be content simply absorbing the natural environment. The rock iguana, which numbered only about 100 in the world two decades ago (all on nearby Anegada), was re-introduced here in 1984 with spectacular results–Guana Island is now home to hundreds of the reclusive species. A flock of shy flamingos resides in the island’s salt pond, and other birds are documented in a natural history guide published by the naturalists who study here annually.
I think Guana’s very appeal lies in this unvarnished integration into the environment. The island’s native milieu is the luxury. The owners have simply added just enough genteel amenities to allow visitors to relax at Guana Island in peaceful, glitz-free comfort.
Double rates: $650 in summer, $895 in winter, plus 17 percent tax/service; includes three meals daily, wine with meals, afternoon tea and non-motorized watersports. 800-544-8262; www.guana.com.
2. The Zen option
Hix Island House, Vieques
Most of the island of Vieques, located 8 miles east of Puerto Rico, was expropriated during World War II by the U.S. Navy, which used the eastern half and western quarter of the island for maneuvers and target practice. Tour-ism simmered on the back burner until 1999, when a civilian was killed and four others were injured by a pair of stray bombs. The military presence became a hot-button topic, and President Bill Clinton initiated the process by which the Navy gave up control of the base, turning it over to a conservation land trust administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The result is a backwater that is only just emerging on the tourism radar. There are long, untrammeled beaches reached by jeep via dirt roads, and the roster of wildlife includes manatees, nesting turtles and wild horses, plus the tiny dinoflagellate, a bioluminescent organism that inhabits several sheltered bays, sparkling joyfully like champagne when agitated by the stroke of a swimmer.
And there is Hix Island House, the decidedly modern creation of architect John Hix, who with his wife, Neeva Gayle, has transformed their winter home on Vieques into a minimalist inn.
A student of architect Louis Kahn, Hix used the island environment for inspiration, and each of the 13 lofts is open on one side to the elements, oriented toward prevailing trade winds, allowing Hix to skip air conditioning. Wood and glass were eschewed in favor of raw concrete surfaces–concrete chic softened by Frette linens and Marimekko fabrics. The gentle footprint of Hix–the inn was awarded an Environmental Quality Award by the EPA for its water efficiency and its use of solar heating and electricity–fosters a Zen ambience (replete with morning yoga sessions).
Some visitors find Hix forces them to be a little too close to nature: The private showers are open-air, and rainfall and crowing roosters demand regard from light sleepers. “There’s a very direct connection to nature and the sun,” says Hix. “It has a lot of the qualities of camping, but you don’t have to go hide in a tent if it starts to rain.”
The inn has few hotel-style facilities beyond a striking pool, but you’ll be within walking distance of Chez Shack (the island’s best restaurant), and each room has a fridge stocked with eggs, juice, coffee and cereal. And it’s just a short drive to access 18,000 acres of wildlife preserve and deserted beaches.
Vieques is easier to reach nowadays since American Eagle recently started service there from San Juan.
Double rates: From $160 summer, $220 winter, plus 16 percent tax/service. 787-741-2302; www.hixislandhouse.com.
3. Where jungle meets reef
Kanantik, Belize
Along the Caribbean coast of Belize, 18 miles south of Dangriga, the jungle creeps right up to the shoreline, and a beach provides an opening for calming sea views. Here is Kanantik, a resort that bridges the sea and jungle environments handsomely, and throws in a dose of local culture for garnish.
The 300-acre, 25-room resort opened in 2002 and offers subtle elegance. The hub of Kanantik is a soaring thatch-roofed dining area, which leads to a bar and pool, attractively wrapped in wood decking that hovers a couple feet above the sand. A dock extends from the beach, pointing the way to Belize’s famed 185-mile barrier reef, the second longest in the world.
Rooms are contained in individual thatch-roof cabanas, generously spaced along the beachfront, connected by wood-plank walkway. The octagonal rooms are oversized, each with air conditioning, four-poster bed draped with mosquito netting, open-air pebble-floored shower, and adorned with wood lamps carved by Guatemalan artisans.
The style of decor is simple but refined, mirrored by the dining: homemade pasta, fish carpaccio, lobster thermidor and pizzas from a wood-fired oven.
By day, a clattering Mercedes Unimog–the classic, high-riding German military vehicle–takes guests to Cabbage Haul Creek for kayaking, and into the forest to track the manatees, crocodiles and elusive jaguars that live near the resort; all are regularly spotted.
A trio of boats are docked at Kanantik for bone and deep-sea fishing, and snorkeling and diving along the barrier reef.
Kanantik is not for everyone–the beach is only modest by Caribbean standards. But for those interested in a full-frontal encounter with Belize’s jungle and its reef environment, Kanantik is a smart bet for adventurers on vacation.
Double rates: $285 year-round, plus 14 percent tax/service. The meal plan–breakfast, lunch, dinner–is $64 per person, per day. 877-759-8834; www.kanantik.com.
4. Miles and miles of beach The Beach House, Barbuda
A recumbent, coral-formed outpost, Barbuda is not to be confused with Bermuda or Barbados–islands defined by jet access and posh shopping. Instead, this supine sibling of Antigua offers a stark landscape unfettered by progress. It’s not small–at 62 square miles it’s twice the size of St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands–but with most of the island undeveloped, and just 1,200 residents, Barbuda feels diminutive.
Why come here? In a word: beaches–mile after mile of beautiful, loamy, sometimes pink-hued beaches, almost all of which are undeveloped for their entire 17 miles. Offshore, snorkeling is excellent, as is the lobster. There’s a trio of small, expensive resorts, but Barbuda is so off-the-map that when Princess Diana stayed at one, she said it was the first place she was left alone by paparazzi.
The two quirky older resorts have their clientele, but I favor the new Beach House, which sits at a remarkable site–unusual because beaches normally tuck into coves. At Palmetto Point the sand gathers into a 90-degree corner that points toward the sea, creating a huge sweep of sand that wraps the hotel. Indeed, if there’s an objection to be made, it’s that the beach is too big, requiring a trek of several hundred feet from rooms to the water’s edge.
How many hotels can complain of too large a beach?
The understated lobby and restaurant are in a whitewashed building, with deep blue accents and large wooden shutters that open all sides to the breeze. The backdrop: an unusually large pool, the beach and the sea, unfettered by palm trees, cabanas or watersports equipment.
Hotel staff, referred to as “service ambassadors,” wear sensual uniforms of flowing white linens, and one is assigned to each of the 21 rooms. Like a personal butler they unpack luggage and arrange activities, which include most watersports, yoga lessons and horseback riding.
Rooms are spare, with a bed positioned in the middle, adorned in goose-down featherbed and Fili d’Oro linens. The minimalist bathroom is functional and little more. Each room has a deck facing a man-made, foot-deep pond, and beyond it the beach.
It doesn’t take more than a day or two to explore Barbuda. Top attraction is visiting the flock of frigatebirds, which reside in a mangrove lagoon. The birds sport six-foot wing spans, and during mating season–August to November–the males inflate an absurdly large bright red sack under their beaks (chicks hatch December to March).
Double rates: $565 summer, $750 winter, plus 18.5 percent tax/service, include full breakfast and dinner. 888-776-0333; www.thebeachhousebarbuda.com.
5. Sleeping with history
Hermitage, Nevis
Richard and Maureen Lupinacci, originally from Pennsylvania, have been Caribbean residents since 1968, when they were attached to the American embassy in Barbados. In 1971, they bought a plantation house high on the slopes of Nevis Peak as a second home.
But the Hermitage was no ordinary plantation. The small greathouse is upwards of 340 years old, making it probably the oldest wooden house extant in the Caribbean, dating back to before the period when Alexander Hamilton and Admiral Horatio Nelson lived on Nevis.
In 1985 the couple decided to adapt Hermitage into a small, family-run inn. They built cottages on the 15-acre lot that kept with the style of the original greathouse: wooden, fringed in gingerbread and swathed in bright sherbet colors.
Inside are antiques, creaking floorboards with Oriental rugs and whirring fans (the 800-foot elevation is high enough that air conditioning is unnecessary). A pool was added, and a stable for Richard’s collection of horses, plus a horse-drawn carriage for honeymooners.
Today, Hermitage is a 15-room inn of quality and charm, and still very much a family affair–the couple and their 32-year-old son, Richie, are the day-to-day managers, with three older daughters pitching in as needed.
Actually, calling Hermitage family-run conjures a simple bed-and-breakfast style operation, but in fact the inn has a staff of 29, with a full restaurant serving elegant dinners in the greathouse. The kitchen at Hermitage uses the property’s own livestock (sheep, pigs, rabbits), herb garden and mangoes. Meals are impressive enough to draw guests from the island’s inns and resorts, and the Lupinaccis usually join guests at a communal table for dinner on the veranda.
(Tables for two are always available, but raconteurs as entertaining as this couple are few and far between.)
Although Hermitage is about respite in a pastoral setting, there are a few activities of note. Richie will arrange horseback rides along the upper slopes of Nevis Peak, and on 12 Sundays a year, guests will always find the Lupinaccis down at the local track for horse racing. Tennis courts are available, and plantation rambles on foot are reliably photogenic. In-room spa treatments are available for guests in need of a pineapple coconut body polish or a sugar scrub seasoned with a local wild citrus called ginger sourange.
And there’s the simple pleasure of sitting poolside, enjoying liquid refreshment under the steady gaze of the island’s slumbering volcano.
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Double rates: From $170 summer, $325 winter, plus 19 percent tax/service; include full breakfast. 800-682-4025; www.hermitagenevis.com.
