Rosewood Le Guanahani Becomes Airelles

We have been sending clients to Rosewood Le Guanahani for years, since the hotel reopened under the Rosewood name in late 2021 after its four-year rebuild. So the news in September that Rosewood would leave on 1 October, and that the resort would reopen on 1 November 2026 as Airelles Le Guanahani, came as an abrupt surprise. It also, on reflection, makes a great deal of sense. Here is what has happened, why Airelles is a plausible fit, and the honest questions our Travel Designers are asking before the first clients arrive this winter.

Stéphane Courbit, founder of LOV Group and owner of the Airelles collection, has bought Le Guanahani outright; the price has not been disclosed. Rosewood’s management contract carried an exit clause for 2026, and the death of the resort’s owner, the American investor David Bonderman, brought the sale forward. The handover is unusually fast: Rosewood out on 1 October, Airelles open on 1 November, in time for the Caribbean season that begins at Thanksgiving.

That four-week window is the most telling detail in the story. No hotel can be renovated in a month, and this one does not need to be: it was rebuilt from the ground up after Hurricane Irma and reopened only five years ago. So the early changes will be to service, dining and the guest experience, where the Airelles signature lives, rather than to the buildings. The 66 rooms, suites and villas in their Creole cottages, the two beaches, the spa and the tennis courts stay as they are.

Airelles is one of the most distinctive brands in French hospitality: Les Airelles in Courchevel, Mademoiselle in Val d’Isère, La Bastide de Gordes, Château de la Messardière in Saint-Tropez, Le Grand Contrôle inside the Palace of Versailles, and, since this year, Palladio in Venice. What unites them is a model rather than a look: grand, character-filled houses, butlers as standard, several restaurants rather than one, and generous complimentary programmes for families.

Seen that way, Le Guanahani is less an outlier than the missing piece. Airelles’ Alpine clientele is heavily American and already winters in St Barths; the brand has lacked a sunny address to send them to. And Le Guanahani is the only property on the island with the scale of a true resort: seven hectares on a private peninsula between the Grand Cul-de-Sac lagoon and Maréchal Bay, two beaches, a full spa and proper children’s facilities. The micro-palaces of St Jean and Flamands, Cheval Blanc and Eden Rock among them, are glorious, but they are not where you take three generations for a fortnight. Airelles’ family instinct and Guanahani’s family bones are a natural match.

This is Airelles’ first property outside Europe and its first beach resort, and the brand’s whole reputation rests on a very particular register: theatrical decor, multiple dining rooms, a certain French grandeur. Guanahani under Rosewood was the opposite: discreet, understated, with one restaurant. Part of the American trade press has already wondered aloud whether the two can be reconciled.

Our view is more patient. Airelles takes over a fully operating hotel with its teams in place, under managing director Anne-Laure Ollagnon, and four weeks is not long enough to change a house’s character even if it wanted to. The first season will show Airelles’ additions at the margins, more at the table, more in the butler service, more for children, rather than a transformation. The larger test is longer term: Airelles now owns the walls of a Caribbean resort, with the hurricane risk that implies, which Rosewood as an operator never carried. Stéphane Courbit is said to have tracked this property since 2019, so he has not bought it lightly.

Three practical points for anyone booked, or thinking of booking, this winter.

Existing bookings carry over. Reservations made under Rosewood are being honoured by Airelles. If you are booked with us for the coming season, nothing changes except the name on the door, and we will confirm your arrangements directly.

Rosewood Elite benefits end, and Airelles benefits begin. Le Guanahani left the Rosewood programme on 1 October. From 1 November, stays booked through Berkeley Travel include an upgrade on arrival, subject to availability; daily buffet breakfast for up to two guests per bedroom; a US$100 hotel credit per stay, or US$200 in the two- and three-bedroom Signature Suites; and early check-in and late check-out, subject to availability.

Book early for this season. A new name at the island’s largest resort, in the first winter after the change, will draw both the curious and Airelles’ loyal following. The two-bedroom villas over Thanksgiving, Christmas and the February holidays were tight under Rosewood; expect them to be tighter.

Our Airelles Le Guanahani page has the rooms, beaches and dining in detail. For the rest of the island, our St Barths page lists the properties we book, and for Airelles’ mountain houses this winter, our Courchevel and Val d’Isère pages cover the originals.

Change at a hotel we know well is exactly when a Travel Designer earns their keep: we will be on the island this season, we will know which rooms Airelles has touched first, and we will tell you plainly whether the new house suits you. Contact our team to book Le Guanahani or any of the St Barths properties we represent.

Change at a hotel we know well is exactly when a Travel Designer earns their keep: we will be on the island this season, we will know which rooms Airelles has touched first, and we will tell you plainly whether the new house suits you. Contact our team to book Le Guanahani or any of the St Barths properties we represent.