High-profile tourists looking for discrete luxury now flock to The Cove Eleuthera, a 40-acre boutique hotel that opened in the Bahamas in 2013.
The resort began a multi-phase renovation in August of the property’s 29 luxury rooms on the lesser-known island of Eleuthera, one of nearly 700 islands in the Bahamas archipelago.
Hannah Selinger returned to The Cove Eleuthera for the first time since 1985 with her stepmother in late March. Fortunately, the island is still peaceful. There are no traffic lights or traffic on Eleuthera. About 11,000 people live on the elongated, flat island. People will refer to it as Freedom Island. After all, the name Eleuthera comes from the Greek word for freedom, eleutheros. You may know the island for its live-and-let-live mentality or for its candy-like pineapples. People visit Eleuthera to unwind.
Even novice snorkelers can swim through the hollowed crevices that are home to orange starfish, giant groupers, and the occasional barracuda, as the resort hosts a thriving reef nestled in beautiful limestone outcrops.
They had unobstructed views of the property and the tranquility captured by the nature-inspired renovation in their 1,100-square-foot, two-bedroom ocean-view suite (each room has its own bathroom, and the accommodation also has a powder room and shared living room).
The Cove offers two gorgeous beaches, a spa with private cottages, cruiser bikes for exploring the grounds, a small gym, a full boat dock where visitors can rent the in-house boat for day trips, and a restaurant that transforms from a breakfast spot to a casual poolside lunch spot and then back to a two-tiered dinner restaurant with a full sushi bar where guests can watch the chef prepare sushi.
Tim Hepworth, an associate principal at the California-based BAR Architects & Interiors firm that oversaw the redesign, says his objective was to incorporate the island’s natural environment into the interiors.
The end result is a design that blends naturally with the surroundings of the resort’s four villas, 23 cottages and two suites. The value of the exterior was consistently emphasized through the use of neutral colors, linen-covered headboards and occasional blue accents throughout the property.