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Best Caribbean Resorts: Why Anguilla's Cap Juluca Has Successfully Surfed Change

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Let's go back to a time when disruption was not something admirable and did not refer to young cyber-Turks overturning industries, but rather to an irritating interruption in the relied-upon, such as electricity from ConEd.

At that time (1988) the Caribbean had no idea that it was about to be disrupted from it's reggae rhythm by the debut of a resort that raised the luxury bar, and did it on an island that was off-the-map, so to speak. (That's why Princess Margaret had a villa there.)

I'm referring to Cap Juluca and Anguilla. The latter lies a a 15-minute flight from St. Maarten, which was, in the mid-'80s, still cool. But it's the former that's the key, for it has the distinction of turning the Caribbean resort experience inward, to the room, and doing it in an unexpected way, through the bathroom.

Let THD explain.

Until Cap Juluca's debut, Caribbean resorts were largely about outside-the-room. You came to the Caribbean pulled by a Paradise vision: Palms, sand, sun, breezes balm, attire minimal. Your room was largely a place to shower, change, and sleep, no matter how nice. True, there were resorts such as Round Hill in Jamaica that offered a British colonial villa experience as its calling card-- Ralph Lauren still has a villa there--but it was an exception. The Rock Resorts were more the model: Caneel Bay prided itself on its numerous beaches, the seclusion, the Edenic. The rooms were fine but far from a Tumblr post. THD was there in 1992 when the guests were in near rebellion over a proposal to install window air-conditioners. They liked the original idea--you're not here to be in your room.

Cap Juluca disrupted all that. It was about privacy, not community, and the architecture (above) said it all: two-story, detached villas on the scimitar beach of Maundays Bay. Granted, there was a hedge in all this: If the resort flopped, the villas could be sold separately.

But it worked and the owners had a new idea--that Caribbean resorts were now about the room, not just the beach, even though Cap Juluca is on a great one. Moreover, the style wasn't Caribbean, but pumped-up Moroccan, all white buildings with lots of arches and columns (below).

When the resort was finally finished--and it took years--the last six villas (14-19) upped the game: They had private pools and domed roofs. At night, the tail end of the resort looked like a line of observatories.

It was the bathrooms in the larger rooms (above) that were the game changer. For they were not functional, but experiential: enormous, with soaking tubs that resembled double-chaises, walk-in showers, and even an additional outdoor shower in some rooms. You were meant to loll and linger here--and do whatever worked for you with these water works. No Caribbean resort had ever given its guests such a suggestive stage. From then on, the bathroom would become a Caribbean resort benchmark, then an international one, and finally, land in homes by Toll Brothers and other high-end builders.

THD recently revisited Cap Juluca to see how it has held up. The answer: fine, because the owners are pouring money into the property. There's a new French chef, a new luxury cruiser for day excursions, and a new causal waterfront bar/restaurant, Spice (above). The beach is still idyllic--you can't imagine how much money it has taken to keep it that way--and Anguilla itself is still an anomaly: It has a cast of sophisticated restaurants, but the feeling is still Caribbean.

When it comes to room categories, the 70-room Cap Juluca is a bit of a Rubik's Cube. There are six main room categories and each villa has a few of each. Which means the resort easily accommodates families. Here's the room key.

• Beachfront Superior: 700-sq.-ft ground floor doubles with a king bed.

• Beachfront Luxury: 790-sq.-ft doubles, some with a rooftop terrace. The rest are ground-floor and have a solarium.

• Beachfront Junior Suite: 1,100-sq-ft. doubles. From here on up (with one exception, see below) rooms have the resort's signature double tubs. Ground or upper floor. All have an outdoor sunning terrace, and some of the latter have a roof-top terrace.

• Beachfront Private Pool Suite: 2,500-sq-ft. with rotunda dining room and its own pool.

• Beachfront Private Pool Villa: Numbers 14-19, at the far end of the beach. The "observatories". Three bedrooms, two of them off the pool.

• The Jonquil Suite (below): Just opened last year, a two-bedroom, 2,250-sq.-ft. suite. See THD's post, referenced below.

Still with THD? Let him simplify all this.

• As the villa number goes up, the distance from the main house increases.

• Rooms ending in 1 and 2 are ground floor, in 4, 5, and 6, second floor.

• One of the best deals is the Beachfront Premium rooms (a sub-category), which are in Pool Villas 14, 15, 16, 18, and 19. They're among the smallest rooms, but are very private, facing the ocean just behind the beach dune and they have the double tubs. Room 16/2 also has a walk-in shower. (Tom Cruise's co-producer, Paula Wagner, likes these rooms.)

• Another one is the middle, second-floor rooms ending in 5, as they are "turret rooms," meaning they have a curving stairway up to a good-sized roof-top terrace. From it, you can see all the way to St. Maarten for free, meaning there's no extra charge. (Rooms ending in 4 or 6 have an outdoor solarium and shower.)

• Villas 14 and 15 have the stop-you-in-your-tracks entrance, a walkway over the pool (below).

• Villas 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, and 10 have double rooms (Beachfront Luxury) on the second story (below). Families take note: These villas are perfect for you as the ground floor can be a one- or two-bedroom suite and the upper-story rooms can house the kids.