THE CARIBBEAN: Holiday homes high on a golf course in Barbados have views from the Caribbean to the Atlantic

A LONE MONKEY scampers across the golf course as we drive towards the 12th hole. That’s nothing, says Brad Abadie of Landmark, the company building the championship course at Apes Hill, a luxury development on the island of Barbados which takes its name from the creatures.

“Sometimes if you come up early in the morning you’ll see 50 monkeys sunning themselves on the green.”

One golf course looks pretty much like another to the non-golfer, but the one being developed at Apes Hill seems pretty exotic even to the inexpert eye.

A road cut in places through the coral that Barbados is made of winds steeply by a ravine, skirts small lakes and opens onto dramatic vistas of greens fringed by tall palm trees, ocean glistening in the distance.

From the 11th hole, the highest point of the 470 acre-site, there are views of the Caribbean sea on the island’s west coast and the Atlantic ocean, on its east.

It’s here at Moonshine Ridge, a parcel of land by the 10th and 11th holes, that developer James Burdess of Quintessentially Estates Caribbean is selling three-quarter acre to one-acre sites for 31 detached villas costing from $4 million to $7 million (€3m to €5.2m).

Houses from 372sq m to 743sq m-plus (4,000 to 8,000sq ft-plus) will be built on the sites from one of seven architect-approved house types best described as Bajan (short for Barbadian) plantation.

The showhouse has a large open-plan livingroom/kitchen/diningroom opening onto a large outdoor terrace overlooking the golf course and the Caribbean in the distance.

Outside, below the terrace, is a rectangular infinity lap pool, of the kind apparently now favoured by buyers who want pools for exercise.

Upstairs are several large bedrooms with handsome en suite bathrooms and dressingrooms, the main bedroom also opening onto a large terrace.

There are guest cottages over the garage outside. Mahogany fittings and furnishings contrast with cream tiles to give it handsome but airy look.

“We expect some customers will be people upgrading from Royal Westmoreland,” says Burdess, referring to the established large luxury golf estate nearby.

For there is increasing competition on this small island for the kind of wealthy buyer looking for a fairly exclusive holiday home in the sun.

Barbados is becoming a bit like Monaco, says one well-to-do resident – a place where wealthy people attract more wealthy people.

They are comfortable there not just because they are amongst their own, but because locals pretty much leave them alone.

Wealthy foreigners, package holidaymakers, celebrities and local Bajans apparently mingle pretty comfortably, whether it’s at cricket at the Kensington Oval or at nightclubs in Holetown.

(Celebrities include Simon Cowell, who owns a villa on the west coast, Cliff Richard, Michael Flatley and popstar Rihanna, the local girl-made-good – the Barbados government bought her a home on Apes Hill after she won a Grammy.)

Sandy Lane, the beachfront resort bought and lavishly redeveloped a few years ago by a consortium that includes three Irishmen – Dermot Desmond, John Magnier and JP McManus – seems to be acknowledged as number one, talked about in openly admiring tones by locals. Royal Westmoreland is well established, and Four Seasons is building a resort close to Barbados’s capital, Bridgetown, on the south coast (strangely, not too far from a local factory.)

Apes Hill is a strong challenger in this market: the 470-acre site is owned by local businessman Sir Charles Williams, a colourful polo playing Barbadian from a modest background who built the island’s largest construction company.

His estate is being developed in partnership with the well-known Wentworth golf and country club outside London (which will manage Apes Hill) and with Landmark, which has built residential golf developments all over the US and a few outside, including Doonbeg Golf Club in Co Clare (in association with Kiawah).

Only 300 properties will be built on the large site, which already has a settled look – the driveway is landscaped with a profusion of dramatic tropical vegetation.

Apes Hill sponsors a professional polo team with top English players; and Williams and his son Teddy have already built Waterhall Polo Centre at Apes Hill, where residents can watch international polo matches or get coached in the sport.

The whole development is a family enterprise – Linda Williams, Sir Charles’s feisty daughter-in-law, is the marketing manager for Apes Hill and his wife Marianne is its interior designer.

The fact that the Barbados government doesn’t charge capital gains tax is, of course, a lure for the wealthy too (although Irish residents obviously have to pay CGT at home on sale of a property). And although Barbados is not a tax haven it must seem like a good place for an investment by those who still have lots of money in these troubled times.

There are no restrictions on foreigners buying property. The only costs associated with purchase are legal fees of around 1.5 per cent to 2 per cent plus 15 per cent VAT. Annual maintenance charges have not been established yet. There is a $50,000 (€37,829) golf membership fee.

Most buyers at Apes Hill have been British so far, for Barbados is possibly the most British of the Caribbean islands.

But the Irish presence on the island is well established: Dennis O’Brien’s Digicel logo is omnipresent, from the minute you land at the airport, where many staff sport bright red Digicel-branded caps and T-shirts. Of course it’s everywhere at the Kensington Oval, where Digicel sponsored the recent West Indies v England cricket series 2009.

And Quintessentially’s Burdess met his wife, Rebecca, a Skerries woman, when they were both students at Trinity College, Dublin.

Will sales at Moonshine Ridge be affected by the credit crunch?

“We believe that the top-end market will remain strong and it will not stop the purchase of high-end luxury homes,” says Burdess confidently.

Quintessentially Estates Caribbean has lots of experience in this market: Burdess ( has just completed sales of $3 million-plus (€2.27m-plus) large luxury apartments in a development at Sandy Cove, on the seafront not far from Sandy Lane; resales at another villa estate of plantation-style houses called Sugar Hill, are fetching between $5 million and $10 million (€3.78m and €7.57m).

* James Burdess Quintessentially Estates Caribbean 001 246 432 2887 www.quintessentiallyestates.com