PRICE:
Frommer's Recommended

Small and intimate, within a 1938 masonry building with rambling verandas and porches, this conservative, comfortable hotel overlooks acres of pink-sand beach. It has a huge lawn and is separated from Colebrook Street by a wall. Owned by members of the Messier family, the building retains its English colonial-style dormers and many other original features, including a black-and-white checkerboard-tile floor which, we're told, was installed to emulate a sophisticated Cuban resort during the heyday of that island's pre-Castro tourism. In winter, a crackling fire sometimes burns in the hearth near the entrance. The social center is a cheerfully decorated, pastel-painted lounge/dining room/bar/reception with a sense of Bahamian whimsy. As for bedrooms, each one is different, giving the impression that you are in a private home -- as indeed this used to be. Only two of the guest rooms are in the original house, and these are accessible via the building's original 18th-century staircase. The others are within comfortable annexes built during the '70s and '80s. Bathrooms are small but well-maintained, and seven contain tub/showers (the rest just have showers). Dinners are served on the breeze-filled rear porch overlooking the swimming pool, and nonguests are welcome to eat here.

Copyright: Excerpted from Frommer's Bahamas 2009, (c) 2008, Wiley Publishing, Inc.

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