Anguilla / Accommodation

Anguilla is well known for its small group of extremely smart and architecturally striking hotels (and some incredibly smart villas to match), but although the island has successfully pitched itself at the top of the market, with excellent levels of style and service, it has considerable range and some depth. Unexpectedly, there is not much depth in the hotels themselves and much of the best mid-priced accommodation is instead in self-catering properties.  There are a growing number of accommodations at the cheapest end of the scale, including guest houses and self catering properties that are not that expensive and can make a good alternative.

The story of the hotels in Anguilla is an interesting one. Even into the mid 1980s there was very little on the island at all, just the lovely old Rendezvous Bay and a couple of guest houses. But with such fine beaches it was only a matter of time. And in many ways the fact that it developed late helped it. The two hotels that appeared at the beginning of the 1980s – Malliouhana and Cap Juluca – came onto the Caribbean scene just as everything was changing. At Malliouhana Leon Royden built huge rooms, with bathrooms that were the size of Caribbean bedrooms up to that point - before that the theory ran that people came to the Caribbean for the beach and wouldn’t spend much time in their room anyway, so it didn’t matter what size it was. Again Cap Juluca was something completely new, at the cutting edge of style - Moorish style villas with vast bedrooms and bathrooms that opened to the sky. Tastes were changing. A new generation of expensive travellers were beginning to expect style and the sort of space that they had at home.

The island was also a blank canvas with barely any tradition of architecture, and over the next few years Anguilla became home to some extraordinary flights of architectural fancy. The hotels have taken inspiration from around the world; Cap Juluca may have been Moorish, Malliouhana had echoes of the South of France and Cuisinart took inspiration from Mykonos. There was even a crenellated Moroccan palace for a while. Most extraordinary of all, though, was Covecastles, which began a trend of ultra modern style, almost geometrical fantasy. Covecastles are a string of striking villas that stand stark white between the blues of tropical sea and sky, all adjoining cylinders, quadrants and cubes. The most recent addition to Anguilla’s plethora of architectural styles is the ultra chic, sexy minimalism of the modern Viceroy, opened in 2009.

Most recently the theme of geometrical whimsy has been continued (by some of the same architects) in some truly spectacular private villas, which in their turn have changed the villa rental scene on the island (and in the Caribbean to a certain extent). Cerulean started as an eclectic mix of square columns and domes. Next came Altamer, now three villas at the other end of Shoal Bay West. Close to Covecastles, Altamer develops the same theme of stark white geometry, into a series of white, saw-tooth roofs reflecting the shape of Anguillan sails. Temenos, again three villas, stands high on the north shore in a convocation of domes, blocks and cylinders. Temenos is the flagship of Temenos Estates, a huge development that surrounds the Greg Norman golf course. This will be a series of private luxury villas in the same extravagant style, some of which are expected to be for rental.

Tess Hokin (updated, 2011)

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