New luxury villas for sale at Sugar Beach in St Lucia
This Caribbean island has prices well below those of Barbados and none of the financial scandals linked to Antigua
Rebecca O’Connor
It might look like paradise, but the Caribbean has not escaped global financial meltdown. Some luxury developments have run aground, while the Allen Stanford fraud scandal has dented confidence in the stability of banks in the West Indies, particularly Antigua. Still, there are some who believe in the pulling power of paradise, even in a postlapsarian world. “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 Marco Bonini, managing director of Prestigious Properties, a Caribbean property specialist.
However, he and others acknowledge that the choice of island is everything. His hot tip? St Lucia. “St Lucia will be key in 2009. Prices are still well below those in Barbados, but the island is now seeing the arrival of true luxury resorts,” he adds.
Locals and expats are keen to highlight the island’s advantages to investors. First, its banks are conservative, so it has not experienced the price boom of some other islands. It also has exceptionally friendly locals, a dramatic landscape and magical marine life to recommend it.
Once there, you don’t have to look too far to see what they mean. Although St Lucia is not without crime, the people here are genuinely welcoming. The breathtaking topography and coral reefs speak for themselves, but official recognition of the island’s outstanding beauty came in 2004, when Unesco granted World Heritage Site status to the Val des Pitons area of coastline in the southwest of the island.
Among St Lucia’s non-native residents sufficiently charmed to make a life in this part of the island is Lord Glenconner, the British aristocrat who famously bought Mustique in 1958 for £45,000. He settled in St Lucia in 1982. However, apart from the odd super-yacht mooring close to shore, and the occasional appearance of holidaymakers such as Amy Winehouse, the island is relatively light on A-list celebs compared with, say, Barbados. This may or may not be a blessing, depending on your point of view. But developers on St Lucia are hoping to inject the kind of informal glamour that would suit any self-respecting A-lister.
Among the plans to make the island as luxurious as it is beautiful is the redevelopment of the Jalousie Plantation, the 192-acre tropical valley in the middle of the World Heritage Site. The setting is sublime in the way that Coleridge would have meant it: right between the island’s two “pitons” – the name given to its imposing volcanic mountains.
The Plantation, once home to Rose’s Lime Cordial, will become Sugar Beach – a collection of 85 colonial-style villas; pretty but with wow-factor, designed by the architect Lane Pettigrew. They are due for completion in 2011 and will form part of the revamped five-star hotel complex to be run by the Kor Hotel Group. This will provide a chance for buy-to-let investors who also want somewhere to stay for up to four weeks a year.
The exteriors of the villas, some of which have already been sold, are painted in pastel hues and are decorated with filigree flourishes. Inside, they are ultra-white, with polished wood floors and four-poster beds that are so high that you might need a stool to clamber up. Outside, each villa has its own terrace, private shower and plunge pool. Some of these are “negative edge” – design-speak for infinity pools. Villas also come with personal butlers and access to golf carts to carry you around the resort, which is mostly too steep for casual strolls.
The main thing about all the properties, which come in standard or deluxe one or two-bedroom versions for between $610,000 and $2.1 million (£443,266 to £1.52 million), is the fabulous view – which should never be spoilt as no additional development will be permitted within the World Heritage Site. This, together with the weather – an average yearly temperature of 27C (80F) – should be enough to guarantee a constant supply of guests to the hotel, required to sustain rental returns. These are guaranteed for the first year after opening, but will then depend on the occupancy rate, currently 80per cent, and the size of the villa that you have bought.
Although four weeks of sunsetgazing at a time might be enough for some, other buyers might be upset about the restriction. They could consider one of the Ocean Residences: six three and four-bedroom homes costing between $2.8million and $6million, designed in a similar style to the villas, that are yours to keep.
Developers are waiting for more investors to roll in before the villas can be completely finished, but Roger Myers, proprietor of the resort and a former owner of the Café Rouge chain, who also lives on the island, insists that Sugar Beach will not be mothballed because of lack of finance. Backers have been sufficiently convinced by its potential to stump up $100 million, which will also go towards a new spa, refurbishments to the Great House, new restaurants and a bigger beach to accommodate yet more sunset-gazing, should you tire of your terrace.
sugarbeachvillas.com, 020-8812 4773
FARM STAYS ON ST LUCIA
A history lesson is part of a visit to any former plantation – and there are many in St Lucia, Paul Shearer writes. Close to the Jalousie Plantation is the Fond Doux Estate, owned by Eroline and Lyton Lamontagne. Sugar cane was the original crop here in the mid-18th century but it switched to bananas in the the 1980s. With the demise of much of the Caribbean banana trade, the Lamontagnes have diversified, and now run the island’s only certified organic cocoa farm.
In Choiseul, on the east coast, is the fairytale setting of Balenbouche, StLucia’s oldest estate and now a guesthouse and heritage site, run by the Lawaetz family. You can still see the old mill used to crush the sugar canes.