|
|
|
|
Lodging in JA
Huddled on a 100-acre thumb-shaped promontory sloping down to the water 10 miles west of Montego Bay, Round Hill is made up of 28 two-, three-, and four-bedroom private villas—most with pools—that are hired out when their owners are not in residence. (Lauren himself has a unit, but it is not for rent.) Villas are let in their entirety or as suites, each of which has its own entrance and living area. In the interest of privacy, when units are shared, the number of suites that may be occupied is capped at two. "Skeletal staff," if you can believe it, means a housekeeper and a gardener and a breakfast cook fluent in the Round Hill tradition of banana pancakes with Jamaican rum syrup. Golf carts are the only means of locomotion. There's also Pineapple House, operated as a conventional hotel right by the shore; it has 36 perfectly okay guest rooms on two levels. But coming to Round Hill and staying in Pineapple House is like going to a salad bar and ordering a sandwich. The villas are the thing. My villa turned out to be owned by Louis F. "Bo" Polk Jr., the former head of MGM. All schemes to catch a glimpse of the Lauren digs were thwarted, but I'm confident the Polk cottage is stylistically the next best thing to Ralph's. Open on two sides, with nothing but grommeted sailcloth curtains between me and nature, the living room faced the Caribbean beyond lush gardens planted with jasmine and frangipani. The lulling metronomic tick-tick of the lawn sprinkler invited a nap in a caned planter's chair in the morning, and in a settee fashioned from elephantine bamboo in the afternoon. In the bathroom, someone had remembered to put a box of matches beside the candlestick on the lip of the sunken tub, faced in tiny mosaic tiles the same jade as the sea. Personnel is professional if occasionally maladroit. (Note to check-in clerk: lose the lecture about how all tips are included, but guests can leave more if they like.) Babe Paley abandoned Round Hill against her will because her husband preferred Nassau's cooler climate for playing golf. Today it's the terrace of the resort's Plantation Grill, which has plastic furniture and synthetic napkins, that might have sent her packing. And yet, and yet. For its confident air of tropical and colonial chic, Round
Hill is unbeatable. tryall club The difference is that Tryall is a top-flight golf resort whose mahogany-trimmed white stucco villas are never shared. In addition, staff members are in tippy-toed attendance virtually around the clock, and meals tend to be taken "at home" rather than at the on-site restaurants. Another difference: Tryall's gorgeously pitched grounds stretch over 2,200 acres. As a result, where Round Hill has a snuggly feel, Tryall impresses with its wide-openness—at check-in, breathing deeply of the wonderfully balmy air is an instant reflex. And while there is no hotel, there are 12 one- and two-bedroom Great House units, complete with kitchens, in a building adjoining the resort's nerve center, an elegant 19th-century stone plantation manor. While these much more affordable lodgings should not be ruled out, they unfortunately have the rather chilly, ghostly atmosphere of vacation condominiums. Designed by Ralph Plummer, Tryall's 18-hole, 6,772-yard championship golf course is perhaps the best in the Caribbean, its only possible competition being the newer Trent Jones Jr. course at the Four Seasons on Nevis. Half the holes are among the hills, half on more level ground by the water. As New York Observer columnist Michael M. Thomas has noted, the links at Tryall avoid the "bulldozed, gouged look" of many contemporary courses. The resort's course is also famously uncrowded, with the number of rounds held to about 50 per day. For entertainment as well as refreshment, caddies are known to crack open coconuts with machetes mid-game. One veteran caddie, the much-photographed Hubert Russell, transports golf bags on his head. Considering that each owner is responsible for the decoration of his villa, the low-slung houses have a surprisingly uniform look: cool, bright, and fresh, with lapses in taste mercifully few. Count on lots of wicker furniture, louvered shutters, local straw mats, lamps with cast or carved pineapple bases, and good squishy upholstery covered in juicy, four-alarm florals that would look hilariously garish almost anywhere else. Treillage is a big motif; it masks cathedral ceilings, edges towering canopy beds. As villas grow in size, so does the staff—to the minimum of three might be added a butler. Service is efficient and discreet in the best Jamaican tradition. Accommodations offer an embarrassment of choice. Since so much of life at
Tryall is lived out-of-doors, and since a three-shot par five is not everyone's
idea of heaven, the size and orientation of the terrace should be a guiding
factor when selecting a villa. Safety? The resort spends a reassuring half
million dollars a year on security, including guards. half moon But not a single map of the property. At least I never saw one during my 24 hours at Half Moon, and it sure would have been useful (apparently you have to ask). As the above numbers suggest, this is resort life on a potentially bewildering scale. A map is so crucial to understanding and enjoying the place, sending one out to guests should be a standard part of reservation procedure. Of all the big-gun Jamaica hotels, Half Moon has the lowest style quotient. But it probably also delivers the best value for money. At $195 a night, my bottom-of-the-line "superior" had a chipped bathtub and twee heart-shaped cushions. But the sea view was so spectacular, Half Moon could ask $100 more for the room and not be accused of overcharging. A good diver could use the terrace as a springboard into the Caribbean. The resort is big on kids, offering activities that are the opposite of run-of-the-mill, such as tree planting, reggae dancing, and classes in Jamaican patois. These distractions free up parents for golf, which is pursued almost as seriously as at Tryall. Molded from foothills, long on both bunkering and beauty, Half Moon's 18-hole, 7,119-yard championship course was designed in 1961 by Robert Trent Jones Sr. Beginners set on becoming middle-handicappers are in good hands at the hotel's David Leadbetter Golf Academy. Leadbetter "rebuilt" Nick Faldo's legendary swing and has sharpened the games of pros Ernie Els and Greg Norman. Half Moon also rebuilds self-esteem. Pulling under the porte-cochere, which
is only slightly less grand than the White House's, is a pure act of
ego-fluffing. jamaica inn "Imagine you're one of those wired Young Turks who put on a suit every day to go down to Wall Street," reasons Morrow. "Is buttoning your top button any part of your picture of a winter vacation in the sun? The answer is no. After a hotel in Antigua retired its tie policy last year, we were the last place in the Caribbean with one on its books. Our five-piece dance band is so bad it's good, if you know what I mean, but I wouldn't think of getting rid of it because we've had one for forty years. Still, I've got to bring the hotel forward." Not too forward and not too fast, the core constituency of old-timers pray, worrying about the butter curls on their crustless white toast and bacon bits in their salads. Situated 70 miles east of Montego Bay in Ocho Rios, Jamaica Inn is fronted by a private, 700-foot beach dusted with silky sand, the diamond in the hotel's tiara. The beach is enclosed by rocky spits that rustle with vegetation and conjure the marvelously exclusive feeling of an enclave. Donning red jackets with gold braid, smiling waiters—some with 25 years of service at the resort—appear under the punishing noonday sun to tempt guests lounging beneath thatched umbrellas with—peanuts! In a deliciously retro gesture, the salty snack is doled out with a lemonade spoon from linen-lined silver dishes. Eat up, because at dinner the kitchen may try to pass off Sea Legs as crabmeat. Of the 42 guest rooms, 3 suites, and one cottage, "premier" accommodations are the way to go. They have fully furnished living areas that are bigger than a Manhattan studio and completely open on one long side to the sea or beach. In the beach wing, only chunky, whitewashed balustrades stand between the sand and these charming, highly civilized, stage set-like verandas, appointed with terrazzo tiles, mahogany writing tables, and wing chairs and sofas. Fabrics are in the tonic Lilly Pulitzer taste. Morrow has a tough row to hoe. On the one hand, by changing the dress code,
he is openly courting the frisky MTV generation that throngs Negril up the
coast. On the other hand, the last thing he wants is to alienate the croquet
crowd. It's too early in the season to tell, but Morrow is convinced that both
groups can find happiness at Jamaica Inn. Island Records founder Chris Blackwell launched and nurtured the careers of
Bob Marley, Steve Winwood, and U2. In his latest role as hotelier, Blackwell
oversees a clutch of hipper-than-thou properties in Miami Beach, the Bahamas,
and the Jamaica he still calls home. Since none of the Jamaican resorts in his
Island Outpost portfolio is more than five years old, it seems a little
premature to call them classics. But future classics? That sounds just right to
us. Quietly folded into the Blue Mountains, at an elevation of 3,100 feet, Strawberry
Hill's 12 vernacularly correct 19th-century-style cottages command
heart-stopping views of Kingston. Other defining touches: magnificent fretwork,
mahogany four-posters, heated mattress pads, a first-rate Aveda Concept Spa,
balletic hummingbirds, and cascades of screaming bougainvillea. The Caves' 10 tranquil wood-framed, thatched-roof
cottages—lightheartedly decorated with batiks, mosquito netting, and vivacious
colors—sit high above the sea on volcanic honeycombed cliffs. Snorkeling is
excellent, and sea-salt exfoliation treatments are administered in grottoes. Rooms at Jake's, a 12-cottage mini-resort (stylishly marooned on
Jamaica's remote and fabulously untouristed southwestern coast), don't have
phones, televisions, or air-conditioning—and whether or not there's a beach
depends on the degree of damage done by the last hurricane. But international
funksters from the East Village to the East End can't get enough of this
Mykonos-and-Marrakesh-flavored getaway. Ian Fleming wrote 12 of his James Bond thrillers at Goldeneye, his
15-acre waterfront estate just east of Ocho Rios. But these days, the main house
(there are also eight new bungalows) has been zapped into what its designer
calls a three-bedroom "tribal crash pad," perilously priced and jammed
with the kind of outsize luxuries meaningful only to rock stars.
|
|
Click here to make wut2.com your homepage About wut2.com Advertise with us Link to Us Contact us Report Errors Job Opportunities Legal Copyright
|
