Rock House Is a Caribbean Capri in Turks and Caicos
The hand-chiselled cliffside hotel is the first of its kind in the country.
The first thing you’ll notice when you land on the island of Providenciales, or “Provo,” as locals call it, is the tie-dye swirls of azure blue punctuating the endless sea of turquoise water. “I can’t believe it’s that blue,” my travel companion says, as we take off on a cruise from Grace Bay Beach, the continually top-ranked beach in the world.
It’s not hard to see why—it would be almost impossible to replicate the colour of the ocean. The second thing you’ll notice is the powdery, snow-white sand. I’ve visited several islands throughout the Caribbean but have never stepped in sand this soft.
Some 40 main islands and cays make up the Turks and Caicos, but 70 per cent of the residents and most of the resorts are on Providenciales, less than a five-hour flight from Toronto and Montreal. The third-largest island in the archipelago, Providenciales measures just 27 kilometres from end to end, meaning you can reach most bays and beaches in less than 20 minutes. Bars can be found everywhere from in shacks along the shore to on barges on the water, and luxury accommodation comes in the form of villas hugging the coast and havens like Amanyara.
But this season, Grace Bay Resorts is shaking up the hotel landscape with the new 46-key Rock House. Taking a cue from homes typically found in the South of France and along the Amalfi Coast, the one- and two-bedroom stone-clad villas hug the rugged limestone cliffs along Providenciales’ north shore. The resort’s interiors, designed by AD100 designer Shawn Henderson, and architecture, by local firm Coast, successfully transport the Mediterranean to Turks and Caicos. Intended to blend in with the natural landscape, the detached homes were hand-carved into the limestone by local artisans and feature terraces with private plunge pools and outdoor shower gardens sheltered by the cliffs and surrounding shrubbery.
Rock House’s pièce de résistance is its infinity pool, the largest in Turks and Caicos. Here, you can lounge on a day bed or cabana facing the ocean, or head down to the Beach Club, modelled after spots in the Mediterranean. You can start the morning with yoga at the end of the 130-foot-long jetty, and then spend the day sunbathing on one of the parasol-shielded loungers, where rosé and freshly crushed watermelon cocktails stream from the adjacent Cave Bar.
High up on the cliffs, Vita restaurant melds classic Italian cuisine with touches of the Caribbean, such as basil pesto pasta with Sicilian olive oil and wild-caught-lobster pizza with Italian scamorza cheese. But my favourite spot to sit for aperitivo is along the lantern-lit staircase leading down to the shore, where pillows serve as seats under low-slung cocktail tables, and the somewhat secluded location guarantees quiet and a sea of stars overhead.
Images courtesy of Grace Bay Resorts.