World's greatest hotel room?

The new Jade Mountain Resort, which sits high above a volcanic bay on the island of St. Lucia, has attracted a great deal of buzz and curiosity this year. The “resort-within-a-resort” officially opened last December; jaw-dropping photographs of its suites rocketed around the Internet shortly afterwards, and the resort is now booked solid through the rest of 2007.

Visitors enter through the rear of the building, a dizzying profusion of stairwells and gangways worthy of an MC Escher painting. Inside, 24 sleekly appointed suites face west, their infinity pools hovering 16 stories above the ocean. The structure has a vaguely futuristic feel, like it could jet off into outer space at any moment.

Co-owner Karolin Troubetzkoy agrees: “It’s sort of like Battlestar Galactica up there, isn’t it?”

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Jade Mountain is the life’s work of Nick Troubetzkoy, a Russian Canadian architect who has been running Anse Chastanet Resort with his wife Karolin for the last 30 years. Troubetzkoy shares a penchant for sweeping curves and rough-hewn tile with the architect Richard Meier, and the exterior of the resort recalls the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, except sprinkled with infinity pools.

Then there’s the fourth wall issue—the suites don’t have one. Nor are there any sliding doors, screens, or French windows involved; just vast amounts of open space. A bright azure view sweeps into the rooms, which are tastefully arrayed with tropical hardwood furniture and coral tile floors.

The hotel refers to them as “infinity pool sanctuaries,” and the over-riding temptation is to never leave them. In fact, management claims that the current client record for not stepping out the door—not even once—is five days.

“The room itself evoked a feel of a very luxurious cave,” said Brian Ordelheide, an arborist from Los Angeles who recently visited the property with his wife. “As far as the resort itself, we have been nowhere that combines the style, architecture, design, and vistas. I'm sure there must be some villas that have a similar feel… and at those rates, you would have to consider a staffed villa a competitive option.”

Those rates start at $950 a night. The sanctuaries come in three celestial flavors—star, moon and sun. The sun rooms, which are the largest and feature the “most commanding views,” run at a high season rack rate of $1,470 a night. But what’s a month’s rent for a night in paradise?

Bereft of television, phones or electric communication, the rooms encourage a sedate state of Platonic being, or perhaps Platonic floating. The pools are not cosmetic affairs—they fill nearly half the suite (in the larger suites they measure 900 square feet). At night, thanks to mysterious fiberoptic wizardry, they change color.

While the hotel literature notes that “there is no formal separation between the sleeping and living spaces,” there is very little formal separation to be found anywhere. This open-air layout may prove disconcerting to more discrete temperaments, as the toilet and shower are decidedly al fresco.

“Not everyone will be happy with the open air concept—birds fly in and out, you may find an occasional gecko in your room, and at times it may be hot,” says Patti Pake, a Virtuoso Travel Agent who specializes in St. Lucia. “But Jade Mountain is not a hotel or resort in the traditional sense. It is unique accommodation experience—similar to a tented safari camp or over-water bungalow in Bora Bora.”

The reviews from most of the travel glossies to date have been almost embarrassingly breathless. Online comments from recent patrons feature a more nuanced range of opinions—some near incoherent with praise, others more measured, especially considering the prices involved.

While the resort offers a golf cart service, the trek to the beach is an admitted slog, and entails lots of stairs and a steep cement incline. And as the management will be the first to admit, Jade Mountain is still very much a work in progress; construction continues throughout the property, and a door-flag based room service system (again, no telephones) is still working out some kinks. The layout is not conducive to active pursuits or island rambles.

So far these concerns don’t seem to have any effect on the resort’s popularity with visitors, who seemed to consist primarily of doe-eyed honeymooners and permanently recumbent executive-types. But how long will the appeal last?

“Every year any number of new hotels opens to much fanfare and buzz,” says Pake. “A year or two later they are no longer hot and a new roster has taken their place. As long as the service level at Jade remains high, the waitlist for suites will be long.”

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