Cotton House
The only hotel on an island its homeowners own through a company, and the company owns the hotel.
Cotton House stands in its gardens above Endeavour Bay on Mustique, a fourteen-hundred-acre island in the Grenadines. The hotel's own ground is published at thirteen acres and, by one guide, at twenty. The arrangement around it is the entry. Mustique belongs to the Mustique Company, a private limited company that is itself owned by the island's homeowners, and the company owns the hotel too. About a hundred and twenty private villas stand on the island, many let through the same company. A guest here is staying in a house that belongs, at one remove, to the neighbours.
The building is the oldest structure on the island, an eighteenth-century warehouse for cotton, sugar and rum from the plantation era, restored by Oliver Messel after Colin Tennant bought Mustique more than half a century ago and set about turning it into a place for friends to build. The clubhouse dates from 1968. Counts are published at seventeen, nineteen and twenty rooms, suites and cottages, many with plunge pools. The island is not empty of its own people: about five hundred live there year round, mostly in the villages of Lovell, Britannia Bay and Dover. The hotel closes from September to November.
An island owned by its homeowners, with a hotel inside the company. It is Jumby Bay's arrangement at a larger scale, with one difference: here the residents' company owns the hotel as well as the ground under it.
The weekly party is for everyone. The house still hosts the island's weekly cocktail party for villa-owning residents as well as guests. A hotel functioning as the island's drawing room is a use of the building, not just of the land.
Who it is not for
Cotton House is wrong for travellers who want the island to themselves: Mustique carries some hundred and twenty villas and three villages of year-round residents. It is wrong for anyone looking for a choice of hotels, since this is the only full-service one. It is wrong for guests travelling from September to November, when the house is closed. For a Grenadine island held by a single owner with no one else on it, Petit St. Vincent is a short way south.
Sources
- Encyclopaedic record - Mustique is owned by the Mustique Company, a private limited company in turn owned by the island's homeowners; about a hundred and twenty private villas, many let through the company; the company also owns a hotel and cafe on the island
- Guide and trade coverage - the hotel is the oldest structure on Mustique, an eighteenth-century plantation building once used to store cotton, sugar and rum, restored by Oliver Messel; the clubhouse dates from 1968; the island covers about fourteen hundred acres, with a year-round population of about five hundred living mostly in Lovell, Britannia Bay and Dover; the hotel hosts the island's weekly cocktail party for residents and guests
Verification
- Official source
- Not yet checked
- Sources disagree
- the hotel's grounds are published as thirteen acres and as twenty; accommodation as seventeen, nineteen and twenty rooms, suites and cottages.
- Property confirmation
- Pending
- Last verified
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Booking
Private Resorts arranges each stay on request, quoting the rates available for the resort and dates. No benefit should be assumed unless it is confirmed in writing for the individual reservation.
Request a proposalClassified by The Resort Collection House · The Register · Edition 2026 · LHL-E-280
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