HEAVEN FOR SNOWBIRDS IN BARBADOS
A taste of unhurried island lifestyle is on offer at The Private Residences at Crane
Standing on the balcony of my suite at The Crane Resort in Barbados, watching the waves of the Atlantic Ocean crash ashore as day fades to night, it’s easy to understand why this former British colony has captivated travellers for centuries. Of course, just about anywhere you go in the Caribbean you can find unimpeded views of the wave-whipped Atlantic or the calm, turquoise Caribbean Sea, dramatic sunrises or sunsets, long strands of sandy beaches with swaying palm trees, fresh tropical fruit and free-flowing rum punch, and plenty of sunshine. What’s harder to find is the peace of mind Barbados offers snowbirds looking to buy a piece of paradise.
Not surprisingly, after a year of record hurricanes crippled popular destinations and severely damaged properties, concern about hurricanes, volcanoes and earthquakes has heightened.
“Barbados hasn’t had a direct hit from a hurricane since 1955,” Paul Doyle, founder and managing director of The Crane Resort explained.
The island delivers when it comes to a more general checklist that includes a good standard of living, established education and health care systems, low crime levels and feeling at ease with the population.
Torontonian Doyle, who used to work in the reinsurance business in Canada, first went to explore the opportunity of buying a small, out-of-the way hotel in the late 1980s. He ended up buying the Crane Hotel, which has perched on 16 hectares of cliff-top land on the southeast coast of the island since 1887.
“Barbados grew on me the longer I stayed,” says Doyle, who is now a resident. “It became clear Canadians are very appreciated here. And that the people are very warm and welcoming.”
The award-winning resort has five restaurants — serving everything from sushi, to seafood, and southern Italian — a café (which has awesome coconut ice cream and sweet bread), shops, a fitness centre, spa, tennis and multiple pools, yet I never had to fight for a beach chair or line up to eat.
Doyle’s uncompromising approach to development has also been applied in two previously announced residential projects that are underway and expected to take seven to 10 years to complete.
It seems “liming,” the Barbadian term for relaxing, has its benefits. An article in the most recent Ins and Outs of Barbados magazine cites a global survey ranking the island second to Okinawa, Japan when it comes to reaching a ripe old age, which the writer attributes to the island’s stress-free, unhurried lifestyle; access to clean, coral-filtered drinking water; cooling northeast trade winds that keep temperatures at 24 to 28 C; and a diet of ground provisions — think yams, sweet potatoes, dasheen root and cassava.
Suites at The Private Residences at Crane have generous kitchens, finished with granite countertops, ample storage and stainless steel appliances for those times you want to cook for yourself or reserve a private chef. And a personal service elevator makes it easy to bring groceries up from the underground parking. Set a table under the stars on your private terrace: at ground level, terraces face a private garden and pool; private roof terraces and dining gazebos adjacent to the pool come with penthouse suites.
The Private Residences at Crane are priced from US$773,000, and include appliances but not furniture, linens and dishes. If you plan to participate in the rental program, you may want to purchase a furniture package from the developer. The second phase of the development, scheduled for completion winter 2018/2019, has one remaining suite for sale. And the third phase has 19 condos available.
Twenty-five of the 63 beach houses planned for development are available for fractional, quarter share or whole ownership for between US$56,000 and $2.95 million, with the front nine scheduled for completion next winter.
Monthly condo fees for a typical two-bedroom unit at The Crane Private Residences start at $1,588; fees for a two-bedroom beach house begin at $2,452. That covers contribution toward resort amenities and services, building insurance, property taxes, utilities, alarm systems, internet, long distance phone calls, cable television, property maintenance and rental pool management services, among other things.
For more information go to: thecraneprivateresidences.com The writer was a guest of The Crane Resort. The organization did not review this article. For National Post