Villa Alize is a villa of very high quality, such as found on St. Barts. It sits high on a Terre-de-Bas hillside above Grand Anse and offers a spectacular view of Terre-de-Haut, including Ilet a Cabri, most of the harbor of Bourg des Saintes, and the Pan du Sucre. The highest peak on Terre-de-Haut, Le Chameau, is aligned with the length of the swimming pool. Perfect feng shui! I often rested my head on the pool's edge, admiring Le Chameau and the boat traffic in the channel between the two main islands of the Saintes.
However, what really distinguishes this villa is how the owners provide on-demand yet unobtrusive concierge service. Laetitia delivered baguettes each morning, Alexandre fresh langoustines (spiny lobster) and colas (yellowtail snapper) for afternoon grilling. She is super friendly and helpful, arranging our restaurant reservations and special orders of tourments d'amour (the local pastry). He is a great fisherman, supplying several restaurants in Terre-de-Haut. We ate at one of them and the chef testified that Alexandre supplies the best fish in the islands.
Back to the villa itself: It was spotlessly clean and in good shape. The photos on-line are accurate, if unable to convey its full beauty. Our requests were dealt with promptly. The owners live downstairs and to the side. The way the villa is laid out, we were mostly unaware that they lived close by. Each level is completely private, with its own remote-controlled gate, own driveway and parking, own swimming pool and own wide terrace.The open-air dining area has a huge charcoal grill and marvelous gas-fired Spanish plancha (griddle).
Inside, the villa flows nicely. The kitchen is located between the outdoor dining area and an expansive interior living/dining room. There are 3 separate bedrooms, each with en-suite full bathroom. There's also a small 4th washroom with toilet. All the bedrooms have air conditioning units that work well, as does the interior living/dining room. But other than 2 of the bedrooms, we usually kept doors and windows open for the alize ( or trade wind, from which the villa gets its name).
We had few problems with mosquitos, using the electronic bug-zapper and citronella candles just one evening when the wind died down and there were showers. That's a small price to pay to be open to the outdoors. Flowers fill the gardens around the villa: Bougainvillea, hibiscus, oranges and passion-fruit.
Ca suffit. Our stay was wonderful. Nous reviendrons!