St. Lucia’s Jade Mountain Resort recently won American Express Travel’s award for ‘Most Breathtaking Views,’ while also making it to their list of the top 25 hotels offering a ‘Best in Class’ customer experience. Rising majestically above a private 600-acre estate with two beaches, the resort is an architectural marvel celebrating St. Lucia’s stunning scenic beauty. The 24 open-walled suites or “sanctuaries” are grand sweeping spaces each with an extravagantly sized private infinity pool floating out into nature and the surrounding Caribbean Sea.
The resort referring to its suites as “sanctuaries,” is not just lip service. When owner and architect Nick Troubetzkoy conceived the property, he was “not thinking of building a resort, but rather a retreat into complete well-being.” For starters, he’s done away with typical hotel corridors. “The journey to your sanctuary happens by way of a long, suspended bridge that’s yours alone. Your entry door is a massive, rough-hewn slab of exotic tropical hardwood. That first step inside creates an instant spiritual uplift,” explains Troubetzkoy. Practically speaking, the design also eliminates distracting foot traffic from staff or other guests outside your suite.
“What I’ve tried to do with Jade Mountain is to change the entire concept of a hotel room. I wanted to create environments that enable guests to forget about the furniture or the fact that they’re in a hotel – in essence, to forget about everything but experiencing the psychology of the space on an intuitive level.” – Nick Troubetzkoy, Owner and Architect, Jude Mountain Resort.
Inside, each sanctuary has been outfitted with carefully handcrafted furnishings sourced from local materials such as sustainable hardwood, plants, stone and crushed coral.
Each of these sanctuaries has one wall open to the elements, as it is designed like a stage that perfectly frames St. Lucia’s twin Piton peaks and the Caribbean Sea below. Nearly every sanctuary also comes with a generously sized infinity pool, which Troubetzkoy compares to a “luminescent Persian carpet floating you out into space, to hover over the Caribbean Sea.” He also notes that the pool in each suite has been elevated and incorporated into the decor, encouraging guests to “intimately interact with it.” The infinity pools and whirlpool tubs in the bathrooms also have coloured underwater LED lighting that guests can control and customise.
The guest sanctuaries are also designed to provide an exquisite setting for an in-room spa experience. Menu highlights include ‘Forget the Outside World,’ a 105-minute anti-stress treatment; Anpagnal massage, a four-handed treatment performed by two therapists simultaneously; and the Alchemy of Two, a couples’ treatment. The resort also offers complete in-room catering.
The resort offers plenty of activities outside the sanctuaries such as the resort’s iconic open-air Treehouse restaurant set amidst the treetops with views of the Caribbean Sea, scuba diving with periodic underwater photography courses and guided paddle-board yoga. The annual Cooking in Paradise Festival is a five-day culinary exploration where guests are invited to cook, hike, harvest, and make personalised chocolate bars from cacao sourced from the resort’s own trees.
Kai en Ciel, Jade Mountain’s spa, uses St. Lucian ingredients in treatments like the ultra-hydrating Chocolate Facial; the refreshing Mango Body Scrub, which will help brighten skin; and the De-Stress Muscle Release Massage, which incorporates locally grown black pepper, rosemary, ginger and lavender.