Intimate Caribbean
Antigua's Small Resorts Open Doors to Another World

By Cindy Loose
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 29, 2006

The small wooden cottage atop a steep hill has no air conditioning, but a soft breeze through louvered windows flutters the sheer white curtains at my balcony door. The trade winds that once carried tall ships from around the world to Antigua today carry to my room the smell of tropical flowers.

Andrew Michelin, whose family came from Europe to the Caribbean several generations ago, says he planned every detail of his small resort so that visitors would have a true Caribbean experience. The roof of each cottage, for example, is made of galvanized metal, so if there happens to be a shower during your stay, you'll hear the sound of raindrops popping off a tin roof.

"When you first wake up, I don't want you to think even for a second, 'Where am I?' " Michelin says. "I want you to awaken and feel where you are, smell where you are, hear where you are."

That sense of place, of foreignness, of being far from home, goes a long way toward explaining the appeal of a small resort. Then, too, there is the intimacy that comes with being one of a handful of guests, rather than one of an anonymous crowd of hundreds moving through a high-rise mega-resort.

The Cocos resort, where I spend my first two nights in Antigua, has just 19 cottages. There are no lines of people waiting to register when I arrive around lunchtime. In fact, I'm the only guest in sight, and the receptionist offers me something to drink before asking my name.

This is my Caribbean dream. When I open the door of my room, I want to see not a long hallway and a blank elevator door, but blue water and green hills. I like my flowers alive and growing, not arranged in a giant vase in the lobby. I come to escape lines, not to join them. Sure, I understand the appeal of on-site fitness centers, kids' clubs, water sports, organized games, poolside fashion shows and the huge "native" buffets common in mega-resorts, but I'll exchange all that for the feeling of escape from the modern world.

Apparently, I am not the only person drawn to intimate properties, even though -- or perhaps because -- they are more unpredictable than large brand-name resorts. In fact, the rising popularity of small hotels is the biggest trend in the Caribbean, says Richard Kahn, a consultant to the Caribbean Tourism Organization, a trade group that represents the islands.

It's really a return to the Caribbean of old.

"Until the late 1980s, 80 percent of the hotel infrastructure throughout the Caribbean was small, intimate, family-owned properties. In the 1990s, there was a huge influx of sprawling high-rise properties with brand names," Kahn says. "What's taking place in the last year or so: The boutique hotels are making a comeback. There is a major resurgence of independent operators building and refurbishing properties that are no more than 80 rooms."

Small hotels tend to be as different and as quirky as the individuals who own them. Why, for example, does Cocos's outdoor dining area have three adjoining decks overlooking the water? Because Michelin started with one, and when he got more money, he built the second. Then when his daughter was getting married, he did some cost calculations and figured it would be almost as cheap to add a third deck big enough to host her reception as it would be to book a catering hall.

Small Caribbean hotels and resorts run from budget to luxury -- from $100 to more than $3,000 a night. Every island in the Caribbean has small hotels and resorts, but Antigua is famous for them. Luxurious high-end resorts with big advertising budgets have played a major role in developing Antigua's reputation. One example: Carlisle Bay, where an all-inclusive night for two runs from $786 off-peak to as much as $3,472 over Christmas. At the all-inclusive Curtain Bluff, often included on lists of the most romantic places in the world, a night for two ranges from $732 to $1,439.

You know without seeing these properties that they must be pretty nice. I head to Antigua to find out if the average traveler can enjoy the island at intimate but midrange or budget properties.

Short answer: Yes. My travels throughout Antigua turned up more than a dozen attractive choices, including a historic plantation house that also serves as an art gallery, two hotels that were once part of a colonial British base, a small resort that focuses on wellness, and more traditional low-rise hotels. Some have air conditioning, others depend on sea breezes and mosquito netting. Some are on the beach, others run water taxis to take you there. Some have a proper British feel, others more laid-back Caribbean.

Despite their differences, some things at each small property remain the same: They offer a strong sense of place, they are memorable, and no one is ever asked to wear a colored ID bracelet. In fact, soon after arriving at each of the three I sampled, I found that every employee knew, if not my name, at least my room number.

The Island

My four-day search for small but affordable properties takes me to every corner of this 108-square-mile island in the Eastern Caribbean, south of the Virgin Islands. There are a lot of corners. Antigua (pronounced an-TEE-ga) has no tourist-central district -- a sharp contrast to such places as Grand Cayman, where large resorts line Seven Mile Beach, and shops and restaurants have been built around them. Or Cancun, where most major hotels have lined up along one road that parallels the best stretch of the coast.

Antigua does have a capital "city," St. John's, that has a cluster of restaurants and shops, but most restaurants and all hotels, resorts and tourist attractions are thinly spread throughout the island, tucked down tiny roads and among the many coves that have made this island popular with the sailing crowd. Depending on your point of view, the distances between things is the island's greatest appeal or its downfall. It means on the one hand that you'll never be running into hordes of tourists at any one place and that isolation is available, but on the other hand, negotiating the island independently is challenging.

The challenge is heightened by the nearly total lack of road signs. When trying to find my way back to a starting point, I often find myself wondering, "Are those the same goats I passed coming here, or is that a different herd?" At one point I am elated to see a dead goat along an empty stretch of road because it's a handy landmark and, unlike the live goats, it isn't going to move. Luckily, the locals are remarkably kind about giving directions at every crossroad. It's as if everyone has accepted graciously as a national service the role of being human signposts for tourists.

The island boasts that it has 365 beaches -- one for every day of the year. They range from long golden strands to little pockets of beach with construction-grade sand. The water, however, is almost uniformly spectacular. You know those photographs of the Caribbean that you always see, but then you get there, and it's not quite as good as the pictures? The water here is like the pictures.

Most of the land on this 14-mile-long, 11-mile-wide island is owned by the government, which bought it from sugar barons after the sugar cane industry collapsed. There are scrubby areas but also fantastic vistas from mountains and cliffs that overlook the coast, a rain forest and lush fruit-growing areas. Along Fig Tree Drive near the town of Liberta, for example, the road is lined with trees heavy with guavas, mangoes, oranges, coconuts and bananas. The hilly road descends to Old Road, which leads to a pineapple farm.

Christopher Columbus, when sailing by in 1493, named Antigua for a Spanish saint, but otherwise the only colonial influence is clearly British. You notice it the moment you step outside the airport and see the Cricket Hall of Fame and the posh Stanford Cricket Ground. Except for an eight-month period in 1666 when the French occupied the island, the British were preeminent here from 1632 to 1981, when they finally gave Antigua and its sister island, Barbuda, full independence.

While defending their turf, the British built 40 forts on Antigua's cliffs and in the inlets leading to protected harbors. They left a legacy of 17th- and 18th-century architecture, including 100 stone windmills, houses and the only surviving Georgian naval base in the world. That base is now popular with yachters, including those who come for the annual Stanford Antigua Sailing Week, one of the five top regattas in the world and the largest in the Caribbean. (It takes place next year from April 29 to May 5.)

Humble, Exotic Cottages

On arrival, I drive the dirt road to Cocos feeling some trepidation -- a natural byproduct of going outside brand-name territory. I'd done some homework, studying the property's Web site and looking online for guest reviews. On TripAdvisor.com, a hotel review site, several guests reported that they loved Cocos, including one couple who said they "acutely felt the lack of air conditioning in July" yet considered it the best resort they'd ever visited. Another guest said she hated it so much that she and her husband left immediately.

But the minute I step from the car and travel up the stone walkway, my spirits soar.

The beach is spectacular -- the water a dazzling light blue so clear it appears transparent in places. The cottages with wooden floors are simple, even humble, but beautiful in their own way. Each has a balcony overlooking the water and an outdoor shower. The mosquito netting around the bed hints at a potential problem, yet I find it exotic and part of an authentic experience.

Cocos is all-inclusive, with rates beginning at $125 per person in the summer and $165 in winter. A lunch of fresh fish in a divine white sauce is the first of a series of excellent meals during my stay.

The waiter who delivers my lunch shows up again to take my order for dinner, and by then we're on a first-name basis. At lunch that first day, I exchange pleasantries with a British woman at the next table who is traveling with her college-age daughter. When my daughter and I end up seated near them at dinner, we chat about our days. That kind of passing intimacy will be repeated at the other two hotels I stay in, Siboney Beach Club and the Admiral's Inn.

Our first night at Cocos, we dine by candlelight on the open decks overlooking the water. Curtains that move with the breeze are tied against the pillars that support the peaked roofs of the decks, creating a romantic and serene atmosphere. The owner circulates among the tables, greeting guests. At my invitation, he joins me for a glass of wine and a chat.

His staff, he says, is hired from the nearby village. He buys ingredients and other supplies from the village, and rather than providing water sports and other activities, he encourages the locals to come onto his property and offer the services. Such outreach, I have to assume, is more common among local owners than among corporate entities based far away.

Loaded With History

A sense of place and individuality are also hallmarks of overnight stays at two other properties in Antigua.

If someone ever has a contest on unique historic settings for Caribbean hotels, the Admiral's Inn will certainly take a prize. The very British inn sits along English Harbour in Nelson's Dockyard, now a national park but once the British naval fleet's strategic port, repair center and safe harbor from hurricanes.

The inn is built from bricks made in England and used as ballast for ships that sailed to Antigua and then returned home full of rum casks. Walk into the first floor of what was once a storehouse for pitch and tar, and you're transported to an English pub.

I mosey up to the bar for a draft and find a British couple who has come specifically to see the dockyard. They point out that the graffiti carved into the bar's countertop -- HMS Bullfrog and other ship names -- was done by 17th- and 18th-century sailors.

I take my brew to the stone patio overlooking English Harbour, which is sheltered by mountains and cliffs on top of which sit British fortresses that once protected the narrow inlet from pirates and from other European powers.

A stroll on the grounds is a march into history. All the buildings that once made up this center of power for the British navy have been preserved. Clarence House was a residence built for the future King William IV while he served under Horatio Nelson as captain of the HMS Pegasus. The gatekeeper's house still has a sign warning, "No foreigners, strangers or women to be admitted." The admiral's house is now a museum.

Hotel workers will drive you to a beach or provide a water taxi to the closest one just across the harbor. I let them know I'd like the water taxi and am told that the driver will be back in 10 minutes -- he had to take his wife somewhere.

Ten minutes later, I'm treated to a lovely little ride through English Harbour. Okay, so the beach where the driver drops me, with a promise to return in one hour, isn't very good. Next time I'll drive to a better beach. I figure that's a compromise worth making for the price. (Rates for a double room are $145 to $180. In summer, it's $95 to $120, and the fifth night is free.)

During late-afternoon tea, a waiter says I must not miss the regular Sunday night concert nearby on Shirley Heights. It turns out to be great advice. The view alone is worth a great deal more than the $10 admission fee.

A winding, well-paved road climbs the mountain, ending at the crest with a 360-degree view of the land and sea below, and a setting sun above. The smell of barbecued jerk chicken fills the air. A steel band is warming up a crowd composed equally of locals and tourists. By the time a reggae band takes the stage, everyone is ready to dance.

The mosquitoes, too, have come out in force, and we have forgotten to bring repellent. The bugs don't seem much interested in me but feast on my daughter.

The following day we traverse the island for our night at the Siboney Beach Club, where rooms range from $190 to $325 in winter, $150 to $205 in summer. Lunch at the hotel's open-air restaurant overlooking the beach comes first, and we find ourselves seated next to the British woman we'd chatted with at Cocos.

The hotel isn't as distinctive as the other two properties, but each room is a suite, the bedroom is air-conditioned and a freshwater pool is shaded by a lush garden. Best of all, the beach -- shared with a nearby Sandals property -- is excellent.

Thinking I'll eat out for dinner, I ask the bartender where the locals dine.

"Kentucky Fried Chicken," he answers, then laughs and suggests two family-owned options.

After lunch, when we check in, the owner, doing desk duty, remarks on the bites on my daughter's arms. He pokes around the office but can't find an ointment. A few minutes later, as we unpack, we hear a knock. An employee has been dispatched to deliver an anti-itch cream.

One of the small services of the sort you come to expect at a small resort.