#travel #luxury #resort #artists #Caribbean #Nevis #nature
“This boutique hotel in Nevis is a paradise where Nature is winning”–Paul Ebeling
The average luxury resort in the Carib wages an unceasing battle against the elements, but Vs the average a novel strategy occurred at the Golden Rock Inn, an 11-room gem at the base of Nevis Peak (pictured above).
The owners of Golden Rock like it when Nature is winning.
This is the motto for Helen Marden, who, with her husband Brice Marden, both art world luminaries, acquired the property in Y 2005. Previously a bed and breakfast, and before that a sugar plantation, until they reimagined it in collaboration with the architect Ed Tuttle and the landscape architect Raymond Jungles.
The result is a sophisticated retreat where nature is the Big Star, and the bungalows, swimming pool, and restaurant are almost buried in a terraced abundance of green: massive philodendron, fat avocado, fragrant jasmine, royal palm, petticoat palm, and lots of other kinds of palm.
Golden Rock is the passion project of a singular aesthetic vision, the work of the Mardens reveals a deep engagement with nature.
For example, in art critic Peter Schjeldahl’s write-up in the New Yorker on Brice’s 2006 MoMA retrospective, he discusses the paintings’ relationship to colors found in nature that Marden observed and eloquently detailed in notes across his extensive travels. The Mardens are also part-time residents of Marrakesh, Hydra, and Tivoli in upstate New York, where they own the Hotel Tivoli.
In Y 2021, Gagosian exhibited a new body of Helen’s work, touting her “vision of a world in which environmental forces and human culture might be reconciled and reunited.”
Getting there
The international airport is located in the slightly more populous St. Kitts, with Saint Christopher and Nevis being part of the Leeward Islands that separate the Caribbean from the Atlantic.
To reach Nevis, the smaller sister island, you boarded a van playing a tourism jingle and smelling charmingly of diesel. Motor up and down a high, slender ridge, passing a strip of beach shack bars where swimmers jumped off little piers. Then board a water taxi, cross the body of water known as “the Narrows” that separates the 2 islands, hail a driver named Smile, who drives you around the ring road that circles the dormant volcano at Nevis’ heart.
Enjoy your travels, the chaos is over, Keep the Faith!
