I’m sitting in a chair, looking through a picture window to the turquoise sea.
There’s a four poster bed behind me, a telescope at my right. There are no sounds, no speakers, just waves and birds and wind.
This might be the prettiest window in the world, my wife tells me. And she isn’t wrong.
The years fall away to the point that it could just as easily be 1957 as 2017.
When you’re in a perfect hotel room, a timeless hotel room, years don’t matter.
It’s no surprise then that this room was designed by Ralph Lauren.
This is Round Hill, the iconic resort property near Montego Bay (in the town of Hopewell in Hanover, to be exact) of which Lauren is a part owner (with a pair of villas on the property) and where Lauren designed all of the guest rooms in a renovation a few years back.
This is Lauren’s love letter to an island that has long been a second home for him and his family, an homage to the golden age of Jamaican hospitality.
Walking the grounds , you see that they don’t make hotels like this anymore, with black and white tile floors and a tuxedoed concierge and shelves of mailboxes at the front desk.
It’s the sort of place where a passing hotel employee will greet you by name, where the cocktails are simple and powerful, where you can write a novel sitting by the spa.
All the elements of great luxury are fulfilled, from superb, truly local food to happily and conscientiously delivered service. (Along with a truly incredible infinity pool designed for Jamaican sunsets).
If you look closely, you’ll spot the pool. (Now that’s the mark of a good infinity pool)
But everything comes back to these beautiful rooms, designed to make you feel grand in the way few hotels try anymore.
Isn’t that what Lauren has always been about? Trying to honor virtues like elegance, grace and noble comportment?
Round Hill is not of this era, and that’s precisely why it transcends it.
That’s the thing with timeless hotels – they’ll outlast us all. And that’s what makes them unforgettable.
— Alexander Britell
To book a stay at Round Hill, click here.
