Nevis attracted visitors from across the Atlantic thanks to its first tourist attraction: its healing, volcanic springs. The island’s first guesthouse, appropriately named the Bath Hotel, was built in 1778 by wealthy plantation owners at the foot of a natural spring near the capital of Charlestown. It is believed to be the Caribbean’s first official resort. Bath Hotel was so popular in the 19th century that visitors traveled two months by ship to “take the waters.” Before the age of sugar plantations, the island’s first settlers, Caribs and Arawak Indians, also believed in the therapeutic powers of the springs. They named the island Oualie, “Land of Beautiful Waters.”
That heritage inspired today’s 12,000-square-foot spa, which truly reflects and respects its surroundings. The entire theme is inspired by Nevisian ingredients, cures, and remedies as well as the native environment and vernacular architecture. The seamless indoor-outdoor design incorporates tranquil gardens, fountains (one fashioned in an antique copper pot once used in sugar production), and pools including a cold-plunge “sala” with viewing deck of towering, lowering Mt. Nevis and a volcanic stone Jacuzzi recalling a sugar mill ruin. The six yellow-and-white gingerbread trimmed massage treatment cottages resemble colonial West Indian homes (another six rooms, including two wet rooms with Vichy Showers, occupy the main building). Lemongrass is a key local ingredient.
Treatments utilize indigenous ingredients such as mango, coconut, papaya, and sugarcane: elements styled to evoke a distinctly Caribbean experience, says Spa Director Bruce Lawrence.
Our favorite signature service is the Nevis Naturally massage.
