The Oldest Hotel in the Caribbean is New Again

When the Crane Resort and Residences started in business as a hotel 120 years ago the coral rock building that would serve as an escape for the world weary was already old, having begun life almost a century earlier as a private residence.

Today the oldest operating hotel in the Caribbean, which is perched high on a rocky cliff, overlooking the Atlantic, is taking the best of the old and conjuring it with carefully laid plans for a modern vacation and ownership experience.

Adjacent and echoing the original hotels look and feel, in the former cane fields, are outcroppings of elegant higher rise rooms and accommodations that will eventually make the Crane a more self-sufficient and village like resort that will harken back to its earlier days when the old hotel was known as the "Marine Villa".

Which is fitting, as the Crane, unlike most hotels in Barbados, which are located on the south and west coasts, is located in the southeastern part of Barbados, which even today is not highly developed.

The original eighteen rooms of the old hotel have blossomed into many, but the spirit of the Crane remains the same. Here one can come to hide away, or to frolic on the pink sand tinged beach below, or dine quietly in either of the two world class restaurants on property, Zen and L'Azure.

Here is where experience counts. Peter Doyle, an energy dynamo, with white hair and an easy smile, bounces on his toes while he explains the history of the Crane, and his own history with the property that he purchased in 1988.

He has plans, big plans. But he is conscious of his responsibility to keep what has made the Crane an enclave for travelers for better than a century in tact.

The old hotel's eighteen rooms have been completely resorted and appointed with antique period furnishings and huge poster beds. When you open the shutters in most rooms you have a panoramic view over the blue waters that will take in sunrise in the morning and sunset in the evening. Because the old hotel is high on the cliff the trade winds that blow steadily cool the rooms, with the able natural assistance of eighteen inch thick coral cut rock.

Doyle has owned the Crane since 1988, and he took his Caribbean sweet time learning about it and its guests before embarking on any type of change.

History is evident in the location and the make up of the old hotel, and some guests come back for the idea that they are staying where perhaps their great-great grandparents might have put up for a week or two.

It's part of the atmosphere that Doyle carefully balances with the newer developments. After all, the Crane exists because people could be rejuvenated by the warm sea breezes and salt water, and the restful atmosphere that being "away from it all" on the lesser populated side of tiny Barbados. He is smart to hang onto the legacy.

The Crane Resort and Residences have been featured on the "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, but you don't have to be so to enjoy it. In addition, Conde Naste Magazine has rated beautiful pink tinged Crane Beach one of the ten most beautiful beaches in the world.

Why not journey to the most eastern of Caribbean islands, Barbados, and enjoy the history and unhurried luxury that awaits at the island's most eastern hotel and the Caribbean's oldest operating resort?