Sugar Beach, A Viceroy Resort

Petit Piton rises from the sea at one end of the beach, a cone of volcanic rock more than 700 metres high, and Gros Piton closes the view at the other. Between them lies the Val des Pitons, near Soufrière on the west coast of Saint Lucia, and the whole valley floor belongs to Sugar Beach, A Viceroy Resort.

History

The valley was a sugar estate in the colonial era, known as Jalousie, and the ruins of the old works and the name survived the end of the plantation economy. In the late twentieth century Colin Tennant, later Lord Glenconner, the Scottish aristocrat who had turned Mustique into a retreat for his friends, settled in Saint Lucia and bought land here. Much of the estate passed to developers, and a resort called Jalousie Plantation opened in the valley in the 1990s, later operating for a time under the Hilton name.

In 2004 UNESCO inscribed the Pitons Management Area, which takes in both peaks, the valley and the reefs offshore, on its World Heritage List. Viceroy Hotels and Resorts later took over the old Jalousie resort, rebuilt and enlarged it, and reopened it as Sugar Beach, the name recalling the estate's origins.

Architecture and design

The resort is laid out as a village of white plantation-style cottages and villas scattered up the forested slopes of the valley, with the main buildings and beachfront bungalows on the flat ground near the sea. Shutters, verandas and pitched roofs follow the Caribbean manner. Inside, the rooms are white and grey with dark wood, so the green of the hills and the blue of the bay do the work. Most villas have their own plunge pools, set so that the Pitons fill the view.

Rooms and suites

Rooms range across hillside cottages, villas with plunge pools and bungalows on the beach, the latter with direct access to the sand. Butler service is part of the stay, and electric carts carry guests up and down the steep paths of the valley.

Dining

The Great Room, the main restaurant, opens onto a terrace with the Pitons on either side. A restaurant on the beach serves grilled fish and Caribbean dishes through the day, and the bar takes its name from the sugar cane that once covered the valley. Dinner can also be served privately on a villa terrace or on the beach.

Wellness

The Rainforest Spa sets its treatment rooms in treehouses raised among the trees of the valley, reached by wooden walkways, with the sound of the forest in place of music. Some of the treatment rooms look straight out at the slopes of the Pitons.

Weddings and events

Weddings take place on the beach between the two peaks and in the gardens of the valley. Receptions use the beach, the terraces and private dinners in the villas. The resort's scale and position suit weddings and incentive groups rather than large conferences.

Location

The reef off the beach lies within the Soufrière Marine Management Area, and snorkellers find corals and turtles a few strokes from the sand. Soufrière, the old French capital of the island, is about ten minutes north by road. Nearby are the Sulphur Springs, where a road runs into the crater of a dormant volcano, the Diamond Falls and botanical gardens, and the trail up Gros Piton from the village of Fond Gens Libre. Hewanorra International Airport, at Vieux Fort in the south, is roughly an hour away on the winding coast road, and George F. L. Charles Airport near Castries handles regional flights. Helicopter transfers shorten the journey from either. As a resort in Saint Lucia, it has the island's most famous view to itself.