Orient-Express
Hotels today announced a new villa development on the Caribbean island of
St. Martin, to be located on the cliff side adjacent to the company’s
luxury hotel, La Samanna. Orient-Express Hotels comprises 35 hotels, six tourist trains, three
restaurants and two river cruise businesses. On the resort side of its
business, it specializes in boutique properties ranging from 100 to 120
rooms. Many of the resorts have adjacent land that is suitable for
high-end villa development. The plans are for a limited number of
exclusive luxury villas for private ownership.

“We have been working on the Baie Longue cliff side development for some
time. We can now move ahead with the first phase of the development as we
have all the essential permits and we see strong demand in the
international real estate market for these exclusive, full ownership
villas with market values from 3 to 4 million Euros.” said Simon Sherwood,
President of Orient-Express Hotels. “While we are committed to maintaining
the intimate ambiance of our hotels, we anticipate similar developments at
other properties around the world as we launch this new aspect of our
business.”

The 36 acre development site will provide sweeping views of Baie Longue
and the exclusive lowlands neighbourhood. In the first phase of
development 10 Mediterranean style villas will be built in 2005, ranging
in size from 4000 to 4500 square feet. Each villa will feature expansive
outdoor terraces, arched doorways and windows, a private free form pool,
granite finishes and 21 foot ceilings.

Construction of the first villa is already well advanced and the final
preconstruction phase of the full project will be complete in the next few
weeks with pre-selling of the 10 villas slated to begin in the first
quarter of 2005.

Orient-Express is also working on plans for a larger project on a 12 acre
site on the Dutch side of the island including a marina, retail and
condominium development and hopes to be able to formally announce the
launch of this project early in 2005.

The 37 square mile island of Saint Martin/Sint Maarten is one island with
two nations. For visitors this means a true multi-cultural experience
where numerous languages are spoken, the cuisine is outstanding and the
hospitality refined. The cliff side development is ideally situated just
15 minutes from Marigot, the capital of French St. Martin in the French
West Indies and a short drive from the fabulous restaurants of Grand Case.
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