The long view
By Nicola Venning
The Caribbean tree frogs and geckos that provide a noisy night-time choir in St Lucia have not been the only ones with something to shout about of late. The tropical Windward island of dramatically varied and striking beauty has been shedding its wedding-and-sunburn image and is following in the footsteps of other Caribbean islands by pursuing a plan of upmarket mixed-use (to own and let) luxury second homes and hotels.
“We want another 5,000 rooms over the next 10 years and the majority will be near the international airport [Hewanorra in the south] like Sugar Beach,” says Allen Chastanet, St Lucia’s minister for tourism.
Sugar Beach is a five-star renovation of the former Jalouise Plantation Hotel which is in Val des Pitons – a hummingbird-filled subtropical valley that is part of the Unesco World Heritage Site around the dog-toothed volcanic plugs of the Gros and Petit Pitons. The hotel is the subject of a $100m project by owner Roger Myers (the entrepreneur behind the Café Rouge, Dome and Punch Tavern chains) to refurbish the hotel and turn 85 hotel cottages into elegant buy-to-let villas. Fifty per cent of these traditional colonial-style one- and two-bedroom villas have been sold. All will be in a shared rental pool giving owners a maximum of four weeks use per year. The resort will be managed by deluxe hotel group The Tides and there is a five per cent rental guarantee. Villas start from $610,000 and rise to $2.1m.
The freehold homes and the hotel are on land once owned by Lord Glenconner, otherwise known as Colin Tennant, the raffish, charming old Etonian and socialite who bought the private island of Mustique in 1958 and, with his aristocratic friends including Princess Margaret, created the first jet-set resort. Sugar Beach’s developers are clearly hoping his name will entice a similar upmarket buyer.
Even more chic and expensive are two other small developments that have use of the hotel’s amenities and are being built nearby at Glenconner’s once highly fashionable restaurant, Bang Between the Pitons. Ocean Residences comprises five freehold villas that will be on the edge of a new manmade beach – spectacularly placed at the foot of Gros Piton. Prices range from $2.8m to $6m, and owners have the option to be part of a rental pool.
Further along the beach, in a rare, waterfront or slightly elevated position, will be Glenconner Beach Villas: seven homes ranging from $7m-$12m. All the developments are due to be completed by the end of 2011.
Large colonial homes sell upwards of $15m (though property is on average still 45 per cent less expensive in St Lucia than in nearby Barbados). Estate Agency Savills is selling Gabriel House – a large colonial-style three-bedroom home set in 2.2 acres with views of the Pitons for $18m.
“It is possibly the only part of St Lucia that will get upmarket attention,” says Glenconner. “There is nowhere nicer in the Caribbean but the roads are tortuous, so if you need fun you will have to go elsewhere.”
That elsewhere, is the less hilly north of the island between Castries, the capital, and the wide sweeping, white sandy Rodney Bay. Though there are excellent restaurants and hotels in the south, the more developed – if less picturesque – north has a broader range of amenities, including the new deep-water Rodney Bay Marina, which includes slips for 30 super-yachts among its 260 berths.
Just along from the marina on a beachside strip of reclaimed land is another new development called The Landings. Here, spacious beachfront one- to three-bedroom freehold apartments are in a traditional Caribbean style and come with private moorings for 100 smaller yachts up to 50ft. Prices start from $550,000 and rise to $2.4m and a rental guarantee of 6 per cent per annum has recently been introduced for two years. There are swimming pools, restaurants and stunning views of Pigeon Island, a former pirates’ haunt.
Further inland is the Cap Estate, a hilly, cove-dotted peninsula that includes one of the island’s main golf courses: St Lucia Golf Resort and Country Club as well as many luxury homes. At Mount du Cap, 16 plots of land are for sale and owners can design their own villa with pool. The cost, including landscaping, is about $2.5m.
Smaller and less expensive is neighbouring Cap Maison, a Spanish-styled boutique hotel with mixed-use buy-to-let flats designed by local architect Lane Pettigrew. The units can “lock off” – be divided to create 50 hotel rooms – with freehold ownership, nine weeks use and a rental pool. Sea views, a secluded beach and private (often rooftop) swimming pools are standard. Three out of the 22 flats remain, priced $1.2m-$1.3m. “Cap Maison is small, so the break-even point is low,” says Ollie Gobat, the developer. “For those owners in the pool, the return is potentially very strong.”
Like many second home and holiday destinations, St Lucia has not been immune to the economic downturn; a few developments have stalled and restaurant and hotel owners report lower bookings. Private residential property prices (as opposed to prices in resort developments) fell about 30 per cent between November 2008 and April this year.
In the long term, however, St Lucia has reason to be as pleased as rum punch. The World Bank recently listed it among the top 30 countries in which to invest and tourism is improving. “Arrivals are only 7 to 8 per cent down for the year, which is pretty phenomenal,” says Chastanet. “Most countries’ [falls] are in high double digits.”