La Samanna is an expansive resort with extensive grounds – the tall hotel building itself and a set of equally impressive rental villas. The hotel, whose aim seems to be nothing less than the total fulfillment of their guests’ wants and satisfactions, hosted me in their premier Happy Baie Suite.La Samanna have taken the view that guests want, above all, to have the comforts of home, and from that basis have created the most opulent, most spacious of rooms. Just the Happy Baie Suite is as large as many central London apartments, and could easily function as one too – with its own kitchenette, semi-partitioned dining and lounging areas, a bathroom and dressing room complex, even a long hallway just for that authentic touch. Of course, it is a rare London apartment that would have the marble surfaces and floorings, the sprawling king-sized bed, outdoor Jacuzzi and porch, and regal furniture positioned in every corner and along every wall space. It is the kind of luxury where sitting (or lying down, or reclining) and absorbing one’s surroundings is enough to appreciate the great vision going on at La Samanna.
The Happy Baie suite is on the first floor, just one of a number of specialty suites, in a huge building of 83 guestrooms. To say that La Samanna is far larger than you will probably ever explore is an understatement. Sadly, the most I got to see was the ground floor of La Samanna, housing the bar and restaurant. The Baie Longue Bar is an arresting watering hole with a strong Moroccan and North African style, a drinking den that already has an atmosphere of its own even without any guests in it.
The main restaurant overlooks the sea and beach with every manner of nautical sports on offer and that I would have liked to sample, were it not for the strong winds and somewhat unusually powerful waves crashing into the sand. Breakfast is an American-style buffet, with my favourite twist of all – for the one morning I was here, the bacon was replaced (whether temporarily or otherwise) with grilled Mahi-Mahi. Dinner is a lovely affair, the candle bravely shining out onto the dark sky before
you, and an excellent French-inspired cuisine. While there you must take the opportunity of visiting the wine cellar – with 12,000 bottles and over 1,250 labels, it is simply mind-boggling and fit for the true connoisseur.
I also had a tour of one of the new rental villas, the rising stars of the La Samanna estate. They all have a similar floorplan of 4,600 square feet which makes them larger than some hotels. Everything in the Happy Baie suite is represented in the villas but on a much larger scale. A huge kitchen, enough to cook for the couple of hundred people that have been fitted in one of these villas (an evening the manager describes as the busiest they have experienced so far)…
Whether you want to cook for yourself (a surprisingly common choice) or have your own private dinner service, these kitchens have every kind of appliance and tool that you could need to create a unique, personalised dining experience.
En-suite bedrooms on every floor with cavernous built-in wardrobes (which are apparently never enough, as the occasional La Samanna guest has been known to bring up to 37 suitcases); a wide view overlooking the coastline of Saint-Martin, where one can
sometimes see the curvature of the earth on the horizon; a private pool that skirts around one side of the villa like a small crystal sea, all of one’s own…
These are just a few of the features in the villas that offer an experience beyond a typical notion of luxury.
Come to La Samanna, the most fabulous of hotels on the island of Saint-Martin, to do and to have almost anything you desire.
Belmond La Samanna
PO Box 4077, 97064 St Martin, CEDEX, French West Indies
Tel: 590 590 87 6400
Email: reservations@lasamanna.com
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