Introduction

Dating from the 1950's, three adjacent hotels on Grand Bahama Island, once crucial to the local economy, had become outdated and no longer competitive with other properties in Florida and the Caribbean. Seeing an opportunity to re-position the area in the regional market, the owner of the future Our Lucaya resort purchased the 52-acre site and golf course with its three hotels. He determined that while one would need to be replaced, the other two could be renovated. Teaming with an architect in conceptualizing the master plan and reviewing the existing conditions, the landscape architect accomplished the project vision as stated by the client: the unification of the three hotels into a single resort community with complementary components - "hotels within a hotel." Each hotel caters to a different segment of the market yet contains amenity areas accessible to all visitors, providing a diverse selection of surroundings and activities in a verdant tropical setting.

Variety of Experience

To provide guests with an array of possible experiences during their stay, each hotel and associated pool and deck area was designed and programmed for the intended user group. Although each was designed for a specific type of guest, all three hotels have something to offer any visitor to the resort, and their differences do not exclude guests but rather entice them to visit the different areas. The Grand Bahama is a family-oriented hotel with a water activity area called Kid's Town, containing a Ruins Pool designed to represent historic sugar mill towers and aqueducts on the island. Both of these elements include water and slide features. The new Tower Hotel, serving young adults, was designed in a wave shape to tie in with the existing hotel faces and the new Manor House. Finally, the Lanai Suites Hotel contains a conference center, ballroom, and wings that allow for particularly spacious rooms. The pool is a clean semi-circular shape, with a 300-foot-long infinity edge at the seawall and a wide, submerged shelf for lounge chairs. Each hotel pool area also contains Bahamian-themed restaurants, sports bars, food stands, and other support facilities connecting the pool environments with the activities on the beach.

Separate but Complimentary Layers of Connectivity

Resort hotels have two primary goals: to provide the guest with an enriched and fulfilling experience, and to provide exquisite service. The three adjoining hotels comprising Our Lucaya required a system of separate and distinct circulation pathways to accommodate the required service function, while maintaining the quality of the resort experience. Three parallel layers of circulation were developed - a vehicular access route, a service corridor, and a pedestrian connector. These routes not only facilitate movement. Along with the consistent use of local plant materials, and of bold patterns and textures drawing on the rich local flavor of the Bahama Islands, they integrate the resort's three components into a single entity and experience.

Vehicular and Arrival Corridor

Essential to the concept of a unified resort was the creation of a single point of entry. Upon entering the site along the main entry road, guests pass two of the three hotels. The frontage road was converted into an entry drive through the use of walls, landscaping, and signage, directing the arriving guest to the main lobby at the Manor House. The new Manor House, styled as an island home, is designed for check-in, baggage collection, and orientation for guests before they are delivered to their respective hotel complexes.

Service Corridor

Between the hotels and the Arrival Corridor runs a path used by resort staff to travel between the three hotels. Above-ground in some areas and subterranean in others, it reinforces the functional integrity of the resort.

Pedestrian Corridor-"The Palm Promenade"

After check-in, guests step out onto the back porch of the Manor House and are greeted with a glimpse of the beach across a formal lawn. They then follow a second corridor joining all three hotels-"The Palm Promenade"-that will lead them to their hotel and possibly treat them to a view of one of the other hotels and pool areas along the way. The Palm Promenade, a gently curving path planted generously with palms and other lush vegetation, threads between the buildings and their associated pools. It not only provides physical access to all sections of the resort, but beckons visitors to explore and utilize the facilities that each hotel has to offer. It is also the element that most strongly unifies the three components into a single composition. A final type of circulation route provides public access to the beach from the existing Market Square, located off the property on the opposite side of the Arrival Corridor. Lining this Retail Connector are shops, a casino, and cafes that serve hotel guests as well as other people heading to the beach or drawn specifically by the diverse shopping opportunities-a unique blending of public and private use.

Impact

Our Lucaya is significant not only in its unique conceptual and physical organization as three complementary hotel complexes, integrated yet attracting a diverse clientele. It has also brought a degree of an economic benefit-in terms of local jobs and tax revenues-surpassing that provided by the three original hotels during their heyday. In the process, the project has also minimized the physical impact to the surrounding community and waterfront area. Materials from the imploded central hotel and other demolished hardscape areas were pulverized and used in the new construction, and many of the original trees were stored and re-used. Also preserved, in the process of expanding and stabilizing the beach, was the existing sea grass habitat.