A headland the coast road stops at.
Sunset Shores
The place
Two miles of south-facing shoreline, and a town twenty minutes north that still works.
Sunset Shores sits between a working harbor town and a stretch of coast with nothing on it at all. The airport is an hour and ten, and the last forty minutes of that are the coast road.
The property runs down the headland in terraces rather than up it in floors, which is why almost every room faces water and why nothing here is taller than the pines. The limestone it is built from came from twelve miles inland.
Most guests arrive in the afternoon and do not move the car again.
The whole property, counted
- Rooms
- Five types
across two buildings and the villas - Restaurants
- Two
and a counter that seats six - After dark
- Three rooms
and a nine-hundred-seat theater - Water
- 260 feet of pool
twenty-two cabanas, eight daybeds - Golf
- Eighteen holes
par 71, on the headland - Spa
- Eleven treatment rooms
a hammam, and a courtyard - Event spaces
- Eleven
720 to 7,400 square feet - Out of doors
- Six activities
four things to rent
The building
Five terraces, and you walk down through all of them.
The property steps down the headland rather than standing on it. Reception is at the top, the restaurants and the pool are on the middle terraces, and the spa is at garden level with its courtyard cut into the slope.
Almost every room faces water because of the shape rather than because of the way it steps: on a slope, a room behind another room is still above it. Nothing is taller than the pines, which is the reason the buildings are long and low instead of tall.
Five room types across two buildings, and the villas on the point with their own pools. The limestone came from twelve miles inland and it is the same stone from the drive to the last stair.
Rooms and suites
Arriving
The last forty minutes are the point.
The coast road runs out at the headland and the drive is the end of it. Most people arrive in the afternoon, hand the car over, and do not think about it again until they leave.
An hour and ten from the airport, and the town is twenty minutes north with a working harbor, a Saturday market and four places to eat that have nothing to do with us.
Getting herePlainly
Four things this is not, so nobody arrives expecting them.
It is not all-inclusive
Rooms are rooms. What you eat and drink is charged, and every rate quoted excludes tax, resort fee and service.
It is not a tropical beach
The shoreline is limestone and coarse pale sand, the water is cool until June, and the palms are date palms. People who want turquoise should go somewhere with turquoise.
There is no gym with a wall of screens
There is a room with weights and a rower. The nine miles of coast road are the real answer.
It is not quiet on a Saturday
Euphoria runs until four, Thursday through Sunday. It is at the east end of the lower level and the rooms above it are the ones on the point, deliberately, but a Saturday here is not a retreat.
If it sounds like the place
Rooms and suites from $520 a night.
Five types, across two buildings and the villas on the point. Every one of them faces water.