February 19, 2008

Caribbean | Grenada

Grenada Spices Up

By Nicole Cotroneo

The island’s first “boutique villa resort” welcomes the A-list to Grande Anse Beach.

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To recover from Hurricane Ivan’s devastation in 2004, Grenada, the Caribbean’s “Spice Island,” quickly surmised that money wouldn’t grow on nutmeg trees. Au contraire, it comes from tax breaks and the posh retreats that stem from them. Enter British oil-shipping-golf-club-magnate Peter de Savary, whose Mount Cinnamon resort opens March 1 on Grenada’s crown-jewel shore, Grand Anse Beach. The hotel is just part of a multimillion-dollar development plan meant to elevate Grenada to exclusive St. Barts-style status. It also includes a swanky “marina village” (think: restaurants, bars and boutiques) large enough to park 300-foot super-yachts (de Savary has his own cruiser: the Savvy).

Mount Cinnamon trumpets itself as Grenada’s “first boutique villa resort,” with just 21 spacious suites and villas — the smallest of which is 1,200 square feet. But the entrepreneur (aka PdeS), might do well to keep the claim quiet from neighboring Laluna (pictured), a Design Hotel with 16 thatch-roofed cottages featuring personal plunge pools. The eight-year-old refuge has seen Kate Moss and Anna Wintour crawl into its Balinese four-poster beds, and has been credited with putting Grenada on the elite radar. You know, back when the island was attractive for being lush, not plush.