There’s golf, swimming, tennis, and luxury holiday homes for sale at a Caribbean resort where neighbours include Rio Ferdinand, Wayne Rooney, Andrew Flintoff and David O’Leary
JUST IMAGINE, there you are, watching a spectacular sunset over the Caribbean sea and being serenaded by hummingbirds in full voice, when the door bell rings and there’s a man on your doorstep offering you bananas, grown in the garden of his nearby villa.
“Banana trees grow to 30ft here. I’ll have five or six hundred bananas ready to eat, so I go around on a golf buggy and hand them out to people,” says John Morphet, the Isle of Man-based former sheep farmer turned business tycoon who owns the Royal Westmoreland golf, beach and spa resort in St James, on the west coast of Barbados.
He may be included in the Sunday Times Rich List (741st last year), but he still knows the value of a good banana, and he’s not going to waste them.
Morphet, who made his fortune developing caravan parks and log cabin holiday villages in the northeast of England, bought the Barbados estate with its original 500 acres for a reputed £55 million (€66 million) in September 2004.
He has transformed the former sugar cane plantation into a luxury sporting and leisure destination with an 18-hole championship golf course designed by Robert Trent Jones junior, an impressive Colonial-style clubhouse, tennis and gym facilities, swimming pools, a spa and beach club, and residential units ranging from apartments to custom-built villas.
Four years later, he added a further 250 acres, with the acquisition of the neighbouring Lancaster plantation, where he plans to build a further 250 residential units along with a second golf course. Royal Westmoreland plans to be the first resort in the world to feature golf courses designed by both Robert Trent Jones junior and his brother, Rees Jones.
Luxury, privacy and excellent golf: these requirements regularly top the holiday wish lists of premiership footballers, international cricketers and professional golfers. One of Royal Westmoreland’s the most successful marketing initiatives has been its success in doing deals with sporting figures willing to buy luxury villas and hand them over to the developer’s rental pool, making them available to the public – at a price.
Footballers Wayne Rooney, Rio Ferdinand, Joe Cole and Robbie Savage bought properties on the estate, along with cricketers Andrew Flintoff, Michael Vaughan and Marcus Trescothick, and golfers Ian Woosnam and Lee Westwood.
Irish footballing legend David O’Leary also invested in a villa, and is one of a considerable number of Irish owners at Royal Westmoreland. Morphet estimates that about 8 per cent of the existing 200 units are Irish-owned.
“We haven’t built for many over the past four years, but there’s quite a little enclave of them. They tend to buy second hand. The Irish are very shrewd when they spend their money,” he says.
It’s not essential to buy a property on the estate to taste the celebrity lifestyle. You can rent Wayne Rooney’s seven-bed villa on Ocean Drive – the most prestigious address on the estate – with its fairway and sea views, swimming pool and guest cottage, for between £1,200 (€1,500) and £3,000 (€3,600) a night.
The villa is bright, extremely spacious, luxuriously appointed and set in landscaped tropical gardens. It’s decorated in a neutral palette, and has plenty of room for entertaining on a grand scale.
Next door is the four-bed property belonging to retired former world champion boxer Joe Calzaghe, which rents for between £925 (€1,120) and £2,100 (€2,540) a night. Peak prices are paid between mid-December and early January, with slightly reduced rates running until the end of April, and low season rates for the rest of the year.
Further along Ocean Drive is the impressive mansion occupied by Morphet when he is in Barbados, which he says is about two weeks out of six. It’s the third house he has occupied on the estate, and if you have a spare €5 million or so, it could be yours as it’s up for sale.
By anyone’s standards, these are expensive holiday homes (see panel), but despite the economic reality check, they’re still selling, with British and Canadians buyers most active in the market. “Cash buyers are about 25 per cent, with the rest needing finance. A lot of buyers are planning for their family, for the future,” Morphet says. There is no capital gains tax, inheritance tax or gift tax on Barbados.
For some buyers, the potential annual rental return is attractive. “Conservatively speaking, you will make roughly 10 per cent on your property,” Morphet says.
Buyers can choose to put their property into the Royal Westmoreland rental pool, an option that brings with it additional add-ons such as golf tee times and free access to the beach club facilities at nearby Mullins beach, or make their own rental arrangements privately. The holiday rental website, ownersdirect.co.uk, currently has 26 Royal Westmoreland properties listed for short-term rental.
Royal Westmoreland appeals to buyers (and renters) who appreciate the low-key but constant security presence.
It’s a gated community, so when Colleen Rooney takes to the pool with her young son Kai, she can do so in the knowledge that not even the longest paparazzi lens can intrude on her privacy.
The high-profile guest list isn’t confined to the sporting arena – Bill and Hillary Clinton have visited the estate – and the security presence, though low-key, is constant.
There are only about 25 properties at Royal Westmoreland lived in all year round. Many owners fly in for the high season, December to April, and there is a lively family presence in July and August. But out of season, things can be very quiet. The clubhouse, and a rum shack with limited opening hours, are the only communal places to socialise and eat and drink on site.
However, Holetown, with its many Bajan and international restaurants and good shopping, is just a five-minute drive away.
Sandy Lane, the Irish-owned hotel and golf course, is a couple of miles up the coast, and there are several excellent restaurants, including the Barbados outpost of London celebrity haunt Daphne’s, within a couple of miles’ drive.
Royal Westmoreland, St James, Barbados, 001-246-419-0394 (Barbados), 00-44-1524-782649 (UK), royalwestmoreland.com
The lap of luxury, from €320,000
As winter holds us in its icy grip, its very tempting to indulge in a spot of Caribbean property lust. Well, we can dream.
The land plots currently for sale on Royal Westmorelands book range from £597,000 (€723,000) for a 2,044sq m (22,000sq ft) lot with lake views at Lancaster Drive, to £2,260,000 (€2,736,000) for a 5,574sq m (60,000sq ft) plot with sea views in a prime position among the celebrity owners at 20 Ocean Drive.
Jasmine Ridge is the latest untouched land bank on the estate to be released for sale. A four-bed 325sq m (3,500sq ft) villa with pool in this part of the development will typically cost in the region of £1.4 million (€1.7 million) to build, plus £799,000 (€968,000) for the land plot.
There are more affordable options. One, two and three-bed 77-186sq m (830-2,000sq ft) apartments are on sale for prices from £265,000 (€320,000), and can be rented at rates from between £230 (€280) and £715 (€860) a night.
Townhouse-style four-beds at the estates newly-built Sugar Cane Ridge, near the tennis courts, have just been released for sale with prices upwards of just over €900,000.
There is a hefty €55,665 golf club joining fee for property owners, and the annual membership is €9,473. Homeowners become share holders in the Property Owners’ Association which looks after security, lighting, maintenance of communal areas and roads. The annual contribution is a €6,700 flat fee.
