Jamaicas Bluefields Bay villas may be the Caribbeans best kept secret
Bluefields Bay might just be the best kept secret in all of Jamaica.For more than forty years, those in-the-know have snuck off to a series of hidden villas overlooking mesmerizing emerald waters where an old-world form of hospitality still exists.
The experience is so utterly enchanting that most guests leave feeling sworn to secrecy, fearing that once word gets out, this rare paradise will be lost forever. This fear is not exactly unfounded.Back in 1997, a short piece in the Washington Post cut readers in on the Bluefields secret — shooting up like a flare in the night — and the villas were booked solid for two straight years thereafter.While throngs of tourists at Montego Bay Airport board heavily branded buses bound for the nearest cookie-cutter all-inclusive resort, a gleaming white passenger van driven by a man named Percy pulls up.
A tall, distinguished Jamaican, Percy has been with Bluefields from the very beginning, going back to the early 1980s. As he navigates the van due south off the beaten path, he regales passengers with the history of the villas, how an eccentric accountant from D.C.named Braxton Moncure and his architect wife Deborah literally carved this luxurious retreat out of the rocky coast back when there were no phone lines and all communication happened over CB radio. Since buying the first villa, the Moncures have not only expanded Bluefields to include five other villas and a series of jaw-dropping suites, but they’ve done so while contributing meaningfully to the surrounding community, paving roads to rural schools, providing computers to classrooms, and paying monthly stipends to local teachers.
A certain percentage of each of their bookings goes to furthering this philanthropy under the direction of their own foundation.Ninety minutes from the airport, Percy pulls into Bluefield’s Hermitage, a staggering four-bed, three-bath villa perched over the island’s South Coast.There’s a lot to take in all at once.
The...