Profile: BarbadosThe Royal Westmoreland resort in Barbados is popular with sports celebrities like Gary Lineker - and it attracts golfers, green monkeys and ghosts too, writes Edel Morgan
For €1.2 million, you could purchase a villa in the Royal Westmoreland resort on the west coast of Barbados where football commentator Gary Lineker - and a number of British sports celebrities - own palatial pads.
When I visited the gated resort in early December, an army of landscape gardeners and workmen were scurrying about, putting the finishing touches to Lineker's €3.25 million stone mansion in time for his arrival in Barbados with his family for Christmas.
History doesn't relate if he was aware that a group of journalists were running their fingers along his kitchen worktops in his absence and speculating aloud whether the studded leather table and glass chairs were really suitable for a family with young children.
The interior was unfinished but it looked as if it would be a mix of modern and elaborate French antique-style furniture. A resort staff member was overheard complaining that future tenants of Lineker's house - which could fetch a rent of upwards of €33,403 for 14 nights in peak season - would be unhappy about the distressed furniture in the main bedroom.
I heard one journalist mumbling under his breath that a rusted art deco style dresser beside the master bed looked "more inconsolable than distressed" while the rest of us surmised whether it had cost thousands or had been liberated from a skip.
Golfer Ian Woosnam, cricketer Mike Gatting, Rugby hero Michael Vaughan and former Wimbledon tennis champion Virginia Wade also have houses there.
Apart from that, the most familiar visitors to the former sugar plantation are middle-aged golfers, the green monkeys that frequently pop out of what is left of the vegetation and the ghosts.
One journalist in my party woke up to find a disgruntled looking man peering down on him in his bed who then disappeared. He dismissed it as a strange dream and didn't mention it until the PR lady hosting the trip confided at dinner that she had seen the same ghostly apparition in a nearby villa.
So disturbed was he by this revelation, he refused to spend the night at the villa, staying instead in another villa down the road.
There have also been sightings of an old lady around the resort and some believe these restless souls were slaves in the former sugar plantation.
Few Irish luminaries have bought at Royal Westmoreland where property is over 80 per cent British-owned. Wealthy Irish investors tend to flock to the more exclusive Sandy Lane resort owned by Dermot Desmond, JP McManus and John Magnier.
Royal Westmoreland was built by Yorkshire businessman Bill Rooney over a decade ago and acquired by Lancashire leisure entrepreneur John Morphet for around €80million in 2004. The 590-acre compound has over 150 homes, ranging from modest two-beds to sprawling Roman villas.
There's planning permission for 275 homes and the 10-year master plan is to incorporate a man-made beach and lagoon and expand the golf facilities.
The current phase of three and four bedroom colonial style villas come with private swimming pools and cost from €1.4 million to €1.6 million. You have the option of designing your own villa from around €1.2 million.
The 18-hole championship golf course was designed by Robert Trent Jones and has been rated by Golf Monthly magazine as one of top 10 in the world. There is a one-off joining fee of €81,300 and an annual membership of €7,300. For those with a handicap too big to mention there's a driving range and golf tuition from experts.
The resort has three communal swimming pools, floodlit tennis courts, a clubhouse, restaurant, spa and a gym. The emphasis at Royal Westmoreland is on not having to lift a manicured fingernail if at all possible.
Beauty treatments can be transported to your villa and a housekeeper will clean up your mess and do the laundry. Cooks are available at a rate of €8 an hour.
The peak season rent for a three-bedroom Royal Villa with a private pool is over €11,000 a week, around €6,642 in high season and €4,113 in low season.
Exclusive villas like Gary Lineker's start at €6,973 a week to over €23,242.
Barbados is a small island covering just 166 square miles. In the absence of stunning countryside or many historic buildings open to visitors , the island is largely a haven for sun worshippers, water sports enthusiasts and golfers.
Ringed by 70 miles of sunsoaked sandy beaches, the nearest one is attached to the Colony Club hotel in Holetown where there are lively seafront restaurants and bars and a row of pretty gift shops.
The capital Bridgetown is a frenetic dusty place with crumbling buildings and a dilapidated historic quayside.
Once back through the pink gates of Royal Westmoreland, it's all about luxuriating in a sanitised world of golf, leisurely swims in the pool and drinks in the clubhouse bar.
Who knows, maybe some day they will add ghostbusting to the list of activities.
You can fly to Barabados from Ireland via Manchester airport and London Heathrow and Gatwick.
