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Strawberry Hill

Music-industry mogul turned hotelier extraordinaire Chris Blackwell worked to re-create an idealized version of Jamaica that he remembered from his childhood. The setting is a former coffee plantation in the Blue Mountains, on precariously sloping rain-forest terrain 3,100 feet (930m) above the sea. Views from its terraces overlook the capital's twinkling lights. Eco-sensitive and fully self-contained, it has its own power and water-purification system, a small-scale spa, and elaborate botanical gardens. One former guest described this exclusive resort as a "home away from home for five-star Robinson Crusoes". Maps and/or guides are provided for tours of nearby coffee plantations, hiking and mountain biking through the Blue Mountains, and tours by night or by day of the urban attractions of nearby Kingston.

Accommodations are lavishly nostalgic, draped in bougainvillea and Victorian-inspired gingerbread trim, and outfitted with gracious mahogany furniture like what you'd have expected in a 19th-century Jamaican Great House. Local craftspeople fashioned the cottages and furnished them in classic plantation style, with canopied four-poster beds and louvered mahogany windows. The elegant bathrooms, each designed in an artfully old-fashioned motif, come with tub/shower combinations. The food served in the hotel's glamorous restaurant draws foodies from near and far.

Irish Town, Blue Mountains. 16 units. $295-$775. AE, MC, V. Guests are personally escorted to the hotel in a customized van or via a 7-min. helicopter ride. It's a 50-min. drive from the Kingston international airport or 30 min. via mountain roads from the center of Kingston. Amenities: Restaurant; bar; pool; spa with hydrotherapy facilities; bike rentals; room service; massage; laundry service, In room: TV (on request), kitchenette, minibar, hair dryer, safe.

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