TUCKERS POINT HOTEL AND SPA

Description:

• Its inauguration in 2009 signaled the debut of the most spectacular, most opulent, and most expensive construction in the history of Bermuda. Its antecedents are known to almost everyone on the island: Beginning in 1958, its forerunner, the Castle Harbour Club, welcomed the wintering wealthy of the American and British Empires. In the 1970s, Marriott attempted an abortive renaissance of the place but failed to rebuild enough of its by-then antiquated infrastructure to make a go of it. Recognizing the value of the terrain (200 acres of what some people say is the most beautiful seafront in Bermuda), the need for upscale homes, and the legendary posh of the old Castle Harbour, the present owners tore most of the quasi-fortified, inward-looking, infrastructure to the ground, retaining only the original steel girders and an outdoor elevator which still hauls residents from the hotel down a cliff face to the beachfront. Rising triumphantly from the wreckage is a spectacularly comprehensive resort that proudly asserts its room rates as the most expensive on Bermuda, and its physical plant as the island's most comprehensive, imaginative, and theatrical.

  Creative styling fairly oozes out of this place, thanks to a coordinated and sometimes brilliant collaboration of landscapers, architects, interior designers, and financiers. Its centerpiece is a balconied, big-windowed manor house loaded with contemporary art and a combination of antiques and acceptable reproductions that evoke a home where items were "collected" over several generations of discerning owners. A uniformed staff guides virtually every aspect of your arrival and well-being, and since the hotel has a huge physical plant but only 88 units, there's every possible sense that this is, indeed, an intensely personalized boutique resort with big-city amenities. There's a higher percentage of upscale boutiques within the hotel than within any other competitor on the island, lots of fireplaces that blaze at the appropriate windy and foggy moments, and a beach that's the envy of lesser hotels.

  The resort's spa is the most comprehensive in Bermuda, with a decor that some visitors compare to something aboard the Orient Express at its most posh. At the time of its opening, construction costs were estimated in excess of $800,000 per guest room. When we asked this resort's managing director about what he compared the place to, he answered, "a seamless combination of the best of Las Ventanas in Cabo San Lucas (Baja California, Mexico) and the Splendido in Portofino, Italy, with touches of the best aspects of Sandy Lane (Barbados) thrown in as well."

• © Frommer's 2013

Awards:

Frommer's

•  Very Highly Recommended 2010