SWEETNESS AND LIGHT

Sunny, sultry St Lucia is set to get even sexier with the Tides Sugar Beach. By Matt Day

It may look like paradise, but the Caribbean hasn’t escaped the ravages of the economic downturn. In Barbados some high-profile luxury developments have run aground, where Simon Cowell is rumoured to have lost £15 million on a dream home (admittedly a small dent in the wallet of a man whose wealth is estimated at well over £100 million). And Antigua is still reeling from the fallout from the Allen Stanford fraud scandal.

Yet the dream goes strong. ‘The Caribbean is still one of the most lucrative areas to buy your investment property or dream holiday home. The region is truly a year-round des­tination, with direct flights from the UK and USA,’ says Lisa Basire, marketing manager of the Sugar Beach development in St Lucia. However, choice of island and location is key if you want to turn your dream into a profitable reality. In terms of popularity among British buyers, St Lucia lies some way behind the favourite, Barbados. However, St Lucia offers considerably better value — property prices are between 30 and 40 per cent cheaper.

So what does St Lucia have going for investors? Firstly, its banks are conservative, so it has not experienced the price boom of some other islands. The World Bank has ranked it as one of the top 30 countries in the world to invest in prop­erty, the only Caribbean island that high. Thirdly, there are no capital gains, inheritance or estate taxes. But most importantly, it is visually stunning — St Lucia is a volcanic island, far more mountainous than many of its neighbours — and enjoys a temperate year-round tropical climate.

I flew into the capital Castries on the west coast, where about a third of the population lives. Castries airport, which serves the islands, is right on the water and I was picked in my host’s speedboat — the north/south journey is much quicker by boat than road. Most of the development in St Lucia is here on the western, Caribbean coast (rather than the eastern Atlantic coast), concentrated between Gros Islet in the north and Soufrière some two-thirds of the way down the west coast. The rest of the island is almost unspoilt with huge areas of untouched natural reserve.

We first sped north past Castries, where the titanic cruise boats form an orderly traffic jam as they prepare the land­ing craft for the American invasion. We sped on towards Gros Islet. We moored in Rodney Bay Marina, which has become one of the Caribbean’s leading centres for yachting and sport fishing. The marina offers yachters 232 slips and a 4.5-acre boatyard, as well as accommodations for mega-yachts up to 200ft with drafts of up to 14ft — all in a well-protected hurricane-safe haven.

As you travel south the concrete frontline starts to peter out and it starts to look increasingly like the expected para­dise, with rolling hills covered in rainforest and coves and beaches nestling between the cliffs. We pulled in to Marigot Bay for a drink, some 20 miles south of Castries. The tur­quoise bay is framed by lush, emerald hills and novelist James A Michener once described it as ‘the most beautiful bay in the Caribbean’.

We continued south past Soufrière (the historic capital) and just around the corner St Lucia’s trademark Gros Piton and Petit Piton emerged on the horizon. Between these huge volcanic cones there is a lush rainforest rich with native fruit trees, including mango, banana, papaya, coco­nut, avocado, star fruit, sour sop and hog plum. There is also a wide variety of flowering shrubs, including hibiscus, jasmine, bougainvillea and oleander, as well as the bright red flamboyant tree, which attracts tiny iridescent hum­mingbirds. The forest spills down to a secluded white beach where we landed.

This is the Jalousie Plantation, where limes were once farmed for Rose’s lime cordial. The dilapidated estate (including a derelict 18th-century plantation house) was discovered by Lord Glenconner before he left Mustique. He bought the estate in 1982 and by 1988 he had sold part of it to the Jalousie Plantation hotel, which has been man­aged by various chains (including the Hilton group) over the past 30 years.

Roger Myers (former accountant to the Rolling Stones and founder of the Café Rouge restaurants) was tempted out of retirement when the hotel came up for sale again but when he bought it in 2005 it was in urgent need of renovation, so he is investing $100 million to transform the site into the world-class The Tides Sugar Beach, to open in 2011. He has hired the Los Angeles-based Viceroy Hotel Group to manage it and has appointed architect Lane Pettigrew to update the villas and design the new residences. Rather than create an exclusive community like Mustique, they are aiming for something much more relaxed, giving guests a ‘real’ experience — the future plans include a small village square in which locals will be able to set up shops selling Caribbean produce.

‘Roger’s ambition is to create the world’s best hotel on the world’s best site,’ explains Naomi Cambridge, sales manager of the development.

The villas, which are beautifully light, airy and luxurious, have been designed to blend into the natural environment. All residences have panoramic vistas of both the Pitons and the sea, with huge bath areas opening on to spacious terraces with private plunge pools. Both casual and fine dining are available on-site: the elegant Great Room serves Caribbean-influenced fare in an atmosphere of Old World colonial charm, while the Bayside Grill offers a more casual experience on the beach. A sushi bar is planned in the next phase. The stunning Rainforest Oasis spa will comprise a group of tree huts built high up in the rainforest canopy. On-site activities include windsurfing, sailing, diving, snorkelling, kayaking, tennis, archery and billiards. Just a short drive away, the local sulphur springs provide an opportunity to bathe in black waters straight from the heart of the volcano. An odiferous hot sulphur mud bath is highly recommended.

‘There’s nothing like these houses in St Lucia and you would pay at least £17 million for something similar in Bar­bados,’ says Pettigrew. There are three levels of investment: one- and two- bedroom cottages, with their own plunge pools, sold on a buy-to-let basis, from $700,000; larger, four- to five- bedroom villas, which can be leased back into the hotel when not in use by owners, from $2.8 million; and, finally, seven completely private, five- to six- bedroom villas on the yet-to-be-built Glenconner Beach, which start at $7 million. These freehold villas are managed by the hotel when not in use, providing income and carefree mainte­nance. This system ensures that the property is kept up to the highest standards.

To date, sales at Sugar Beach are outperforming all the other developments on the island and annual property appreciation sits at 15–20 per cent. Purchasers of the buy-to-let, fully furnished villas will enjoy a minimum 5 per cent rental guarantee from handover and for the first twelve months after the hotel opening planned for 2011.

Once you’ve chosen your villa, all that’s left is to decide: will you snorkel in the clear blue Caribbean or luxuriate on the beach?