A design upgrade was already planned for Belmond Cap Juluca when Hurricane Irma wreaked havoc on the island of Anguilla in 2017. With electricity solely powered by generators, Dallas architecture firm HKS and Houston- and New York-based Rottet Studio forged ahead on what was now a top-to-bottom renovation of the significantly damaged resort.

When it opened in 1988, Cap Juluca was a gamechanging Caribbean hideaway that championed privacy and stood out with its Greco-Moorish architecture. HKS nodded to the past by reconfiguring the flow of the property. “The new layout provides the opportunity for the guests to explore [each space] with ease,” says Melissa Voelker, the firm’s senior lead designer. For the interiors, Rottet Studio didn’t want to alter that personality either, only layer in more comfort and luxury. “We designed Cap Juluca to capture the spirit of the Caribbean, as it was when newly settled,” says founding principal Lauren Rottet.

Guests are now greeted at the Main House by a brass chandelier adorned with burgundy tassels, antiques such as a European table from the 1830s, and a Moroccan pool, with tiles glazed in an emerald hue evocative of a watercolor painting. Library tables with hand-turned legs made in Mexico and fringed hammocks handwoven in South America blend with indigenous limestone surfaces and chairs flaunting the likes of palm rattan, teak root, and braided apaca rope.

In Cip’s by Cipriani restaurant, accents of coral and tiles in eight different green glazes echo the surrounding landscape, while arabesque ones in three shades of dark charcoal gray heighten the 108 guestrooms. “We felt a dark floor, which creates a sense of relaxed shelter was well-suited,” says Rottet, “as surely guests will want to take a long, luxurious nap after playing in the sun all day.”