Nikki Beach Turks & Caicos: Island Frenzy
Laurel Cummings
May 07, 2008
Ah, the simple island life. White sandy beaches, clear blue waters, $5,000 for a private VIP cabana -- with full bottle service and a personal cocktail server of course. Nikki Beach is expanding its empire from high-end restaurants and bars in St. Tropez, South Beach, St. Barths, and other jet-set locations to luxury hotels. The first Nikki Beach Resort recently opened on the northeast tip of Providenciales, in the Turks and Caicos Islands. It's the spearhead of an attempt to trade on the Turks' sun-soaked beauty while swapping the islands' sleepy reputation for more hardcore tropical partying.
The “six-star” hotel offers 50 rooms averaging $1,200 a night, including 35 ocean-view suites complete with ultra-modern Euro-design kitchens, flatscreen HDTVs, and more complimentary Café Nikki sushi creations than you can stuff in your sunburned face. Also included: go-go dancer girls (shipped in weekly from Miami) sashaying to house music on the poolside bar. Then there’s the upcoming 16,000-square-foot spa and fitness center, on-call personal assistants for each guest, and the world’s first ecologically friendly mega-yacht marina (good for both going green, and driving friends at home green with envy).
The beach and pool are stunning, and the signature Nikki white daybeds beckon you to lounge the day away sipping fruity drinks with tiny swords & umbrellas. Beguile the bikini-clad cuties with tales of how the Turks resort compares to the other Nikkis you frequent. Chillaxing aside, this is still Nikki Beach, home of infamous Sunday house music day parties, tabletop champagne fights, and Winter Music Conference celeb-DJ events, so better save sleeping for the plane ride home. And that better be a private flight, poseur.
The Turks location marks the first in a greater expansion plan for the Nikki brand; on the horizon are resort & spa openings in Panama Playa Blanca in December, plus more in Fortin Mindelo, Cape Verde Islands, Roatan Honduras, and Panama City by fall 2010. In essence, the Nikki crew is trying to create new destinations of their own devising to lure the jet set away from more established playlands. Inundated with commercial cash, such new places are sure to transform their host regions into something Bob Marley wouldn’t easily recognize.
[Editor’s Note: This post originally misreported that Chris Noth attended the opening ceremonies of the Nikki Beach Turks & Caicos resort. This was not the case. BlackBook regrets the error.]
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