Accommodations

Before we began designing the lodge we undertook extensive research that strongly indicated that in today’s overcrowded world, people were increasingly looking for privacy and their own space. It is precisely this concept that became the cornerstone and major influence in the design of the Villas and a point of focus to ensure that guests would really enjoy spending their time in their Villa if they so wished.

With this in mind, we designed Villas that measure 450 square metres (4,890 square feet) which we felt is the optimum size, allowing guests an exclusive feeling and enough room to spread out and enjoy a unique, private, island-style experience to the full. The idea was to make sure the Villas would bring the sense to life, but at the same time be a simple space in which to free the mind and refresh the soul.

Each Villa has two bedrooms, a main bedroom and a second bedroom. Whilst the Villa is primarily occupied by one or two guests, they may have a requirement to use the second bedroom for children nineteen years and younger and this is available at an additional cost. Alternatively, the second bedroom can be converted into a study for guests staying in the master bedroom.

Each Villa has been individually handcrafted by Seychellois and African craftsmen on the Island. The principle materials used were wood, local stone, glass and thatched roofs. All this combines to form a warm and inviting space that offers guests that rare opportunity to relax completely. Each Villa is completely self-contained and is raised over a metre off the ground to catch the cooling island breezes.

A luxuriously proportioned master bedroom with change-room and writing area leads onto a large en-suite bathroom with marble bath and two showers, one indoor and one outdoor. The bedrooms are air-conditioned and all rooms have overhead “punkah punkah” fans. The fully retracting sliding doors allow for uninterrupted views onto the lawns and the turquoise seas in front of each Villa. There is satellite television, a DVD/CD system and Internet access. The kitchen leads off the lounge/dining area. A private plunge pool and sala are the finishing touches in this private sanctuary.

In siting the Villas, we placed Villas 1 to 9 discretely in the tree-line, facing onto Anse d'est Beach. Villas 10 and 11 are completely unique in their siting. Their layout has been designed to accommodate the incline along the extreme northern side of the Anse d'est Beach and they are secretly tucked away in the Takamaka forest. The beach views from these Villas are truly spectacular from every angle of these units and it is this, together with the unique manipulation of the design, which separates these two remarkable Villas from the rest. Villas 10 and 11 are referred to as Villa Royale and Villa North Island respectively.

Each Villa has two bedrooms, a main bedroom and a second bedroom/study. The bedrooms and dressing rooms are air-conditioned and are equipped with extra large beds, as well as lounge areas with TV and DVD/CD. Spacious main bathroom with marble bath, inside and outside showers and twin vanities. A separate toilet and bidet leads off the main bathroom. Lounge and dining area with adjoining kitchenette. Use of a second en-suite room as a guest room or office/study complete with Internet connection (also in the main bedroom), as determined by guests’ personal requirements. 200 square metres of outside decking, a private 17,000 litre pool and covered "sala".

Dining

Besides its exceptional beauty, North Island has long been renowned for its fertility and also for the richness of the fishing grounds wherein it nestles. It is not surprising, therefore, that North Island's lodge should draw upon these exceptional natural resources. Our cuisine is based on the very finest natural products lovingly prepared in a sumptuous array of exotic dishes.

The cuisine of North Island is based on the diversity and cultural influences which, in part, make up the Seychellois Creole flavour. Culinary aspects of Africa, France, southern India and south east Asia are combined with the organic resources of North Island and the abundance on offer from the Indian Ocean. Balanced together with simplicity, expect a feast that will awaken all of your senses.

There is a “no menu” concept of dining in the restaurant i.e. the chef, Dereck Nair, speaks to the guest upon arrival, explains the North Island cuisine concept, finds out their food preferences and then develops the menus daily around this information.

We promise you a memorable culinary experience, complemented by an impressive cellar with some of the world's great wines and champagnes.

To ensure that we can fulfill our promise, please let us know well in advance of any special dietary requirements.

Spa

Every North Island treatment is a completely caring experience and the ultimate in luxury. They have adopted a holistic approach; the treatments are as much for your inner self and your mind as they are for your face or body.

North Island treatments cover facial and body care, body envelopments and finishing touches.

In addition to these treatments, each spa therapist is trained to provide a consultation aimed at designing a personalised spa experience for your stay on North Island. Treatments are designed to relieve stress, and are suited to after-exercise, detoxify, cleanse and purify, refresh and rejuvenate and provide the finishing touches before you take leave of North Island.

In order to complement the essence of North Island, the owners wanted to adopt treatments and products of exceptional standards. ESPA, a boutique spa operator based in the United Kingdom and operating worldwide, has the vision that combines the sense of inner and outer beauty aligned to the North Island experience. It is for this reason that they chose ESPA to partner with in the North Island Spa.

The ESPA product range has been carefully selected and formulated to combine the therapeutic benefits of spa treatments, aromatherapy, thalassotherapy and skin care.

ESPA endeavour, wherever possible, to use natural products formulated using the highest quality organically grown plants chosen for their purity, potency and therapeutic qualities. Their product range is a simple collection rich in essential oils, plant extracts and marine elements. The deeply relaxing and de-stressing oils, revitalizing seaweeds and natural ingredients help to achieve outstanding results on face, body and mind.

Activities

The activities on offer on North Island are designed to give our guests the opportunity to enjoy the Island and its magic either under guidance from one of our hosts, or to give you the complete freedom to move around the Island at your own pace, either on foot, on our mountain bikes or by Island Buggie. These activities will have a minimal impact on the environment whilst providing the thrill and enjoyment of entertainment and exercise.

• Scuba diving: Seychelles forms part of the world's longest coral reef system and has some of the world's best scuba diving sites. Numerous dive sites have been identified around North Island and its nearest neighbour Silhouette Island. We offer a "guided" scuba experience and our dive masters are not only experts in scuba practices but also in the underwater universe.
  
• Snorkelling: there are good snorkelling sites around North Island and Silhouette Island. Masks and fins are available at the dive centre if you wish to explore these sites, either on your own or in the company of a staff
  member (depending on your snorkelling skills).
  
• Sea kayaking: those wishing to explore the Island from the water are able to do so using sea kayaks with all necessary tuition and guidance provided.
  
• North Island Gym: air-conditioned and is situated near the main swimming pool.
  
• Island bicycles: are available for guest use and are suitable for getting from one side of the Island to the other with ease.
  
• Island Buggies: each Villa has its own dedicated Island Buggie. These specially adapted electric carts look like miniature 4 X 4s that give our guests the freedom to move around the Island with ease.
  
• North Island Sunset Bar: a walk along Grande Anse Beach as the sun sets is an enlivening experience not to be missed - especially as the Sunset Bar lies at the end of the walk. This simple, rustic bar is located just above the high water mark on the northern end of Grande Anse. Drinks and light snacks can be served for those wanting to enjoy this beach.
  
• Fly-fishing: an option for any guest. North Island has fishing rods, tackle and flies in stock for guest use. However, we recommend that serious fly-fishermen bring their own rods and tackle.
  
• Trips to Silhouette Island: located some five kilometres to the south, Silhouette Island is a soaring granite island, whose peaks are constantly enveloped in clouds.
• Silhouette Island's attractions include an excellent example of a Seychelles plantation house (built in 1850), now a museum, and the remains of its once thriving copra processing plant. Ron Gerlach is the resident ecologist and runs a breeding programme for the highly endangered Seychelles giant tortoises and terrapin. His immaculate research centre is worth a visit and, depending on the time of the year, you may see turtle eggs (Hawksbill and Green turtles) being incubated.
  
• Boating and island hopping: visit Mahé and the outer islands, including the spectacular bird islands, Arid and Cousin.
  
• Turtles: depending on the time of the year guests may be lucky enough to witness the Hawksbill and Green turtles laying their eggs on the eastern and western beaches of North Island. Our researchers will tag the turtles so that their breeding activities can be monitored.
  
• Walking: explore the Island and its extensive beaches, the granite outcrops and the saddle linking the eastern and western plateaux.

Awards

• Voted #1 by Harpers & Queen (UK) - the Best Hotels on Earth, Oct. 2005
• Conde Nast Traveler Gold List - 2005
• Travel + Leisure magazine: "Hotels We Love" - June 2005

History

Standing on Beau Vallon Beach on Mahé, if you look due North East you can see a tiny hump on the horizon, just to the right of the mountainous Silhouette Island. In the early years of habituation and exploration on Mahé, people would have done exactly that – stood on Beau Vallon Beach and looked out to sea at Ile du Nord and its' sentinel, Silhouette Island.

In 1784 a Portuguese ship was wrecked on North Island. After spending some time marooned on the island, a small handful of the ship's crew built a makeshift raft and risked their lives sailing to Mahé to find help.

We know for certain that there were no inhabitants living on North Island at the time of the wreck, but through that event, settlers from Mahé would have received a good description of North Island. Its plateau, fresh water supply and ample presence of fish and fowl would have drawn the first inhabitants. Officially, the Island's first concession was given in 1826 to a woman, Madam Marie Josephine Celerine Beaufond, a descendant of French settlers from Bourbon (now Reunion). The Island remained in her family's name for the next one hundred and fifty years, as a plantation for growing fruits and spices, mining Guano, fish oil and finally producing copra – the oil pressed from the flesh of a coconut.

In the early days North Island would probably have been planted full with vanilla, patchouli, cinnamon, ylangylang, citronella, nutmeg, cloves and all sorts of fruit. From the aromatic plants grown on the Island, they would have been distilling the essential oils and it is believed that the museum building was once the distillery, built before the turn of the century at the time when that industry was flourishing in the Seychelles. With its wide coral stone walls and narrow arches, it would have been a cool, cavernous space, perfect for the purpose of distilling.

With the abolition of slavery, the industry moved towards the production of copra. Even though North Island was planted predominantly with coconut, it remained more fertile than most islands, and proved to be an excellent farm for fresh produce - Mahé's chief supplier. The elaborate size and quality of the produce grown on North Island is still remembered amongst many older Seychellois people on Mahé – who extrapolate with widened, humorous eyes and animated hand gestures. After the Island was sold in the seventies, it remained an old farm, but not a commercial one, and without all the farm workers to tend to it, it fell into an overgrown state, the farm buildings quickly rotting to the core in this steaming climate and the domestic animals running wild. The ‘pack' of cattle stalked in secret places on the mountainside and became so wiley and elusive, that it has taken two years to catch those that were there. The coconuts were left to take over the Island, dropping their nuts continually, a new burgeoning canopy rising up every few years. The lantana - an invasive alien weed - was also blanketing the plateau and crowded any clearings left open by the coconuts. Thriving on the uncollected fallen coconuts, the rat population also ran amok, the feral cats shortly on their trail. Then North Island was bought and the new "Noah's Ark" idea was hatched.

The purchase and development of North Island heralds a new birth for this exceptional island that resonates with potential and with the promise of a bright future.

Local Area

Behind every great success story lies hidden tales of great challenges met and formidable obstacles successfully surmounted. The development of North Island has been no exception to the rule.

When North Island was abandoned in the 1970's following the collapse of the coconut industry, many unwanted and intrusive species of flora and fauna remained behind such as coconuts, casuarina, cows, rats, pigs, Indian Mynah birds, cats, barn owls and an especially invasive weed called lantana.

Together, these unwanted elements held North Island in a stranglehold that threatened to stifle its very life force, smothering the indigenous plants, decimating the bird life and drying up the marshland that is the lifeblood of the Island.

After the alarm bell had been sounded by prominent ecologists, we undertook the challenge of not only reversing the Island's sorry decline but of taking the long road towards the restoration of the Island to its former glory. A cornerstone of this bold initiative has been the “Noah's Ark” concept by which tortoises and certain species of birds are gradually being re-introduced to the Island along with such indigenous trees as takamaka, badamier and the legendary coco-de-mer palm.

The concept of an eco-sensitive lodge on North Island has been preceded by years of painstaking research and co-ordination with government conservation bodies committed to ensuring the protection of the natural environment and biodiversity. Such considerations have not only placed numerous checks and controls on the nature of the project itself but have also ensured that maximum efforts are made in the direction of the recycling of materials and the rehabilitation of existing structures. They have steered North Island's architects down the road of limited development, limited noise, the preservation of historical sites, the eradication of alien fauna and flora, and the replanting of lost species of fauna as well as the conservation of water and the installation of ecologically sensitive sewerage.

The conscientious pursuit of such policies is now reaping its just rewards and has contributed much to the extraordinary way in which the lodge's 11 secluded Villas blend seamlessly with their surrounds and also to the eco-sensitive aura that now pervades the Island.

Felled alien trees such as the casuarina as well as dead takamaka trees have been used in the building, their serpentine roots now snaking their way through roofs, their bleached limbs adorning balustrades and stairways.

In one inspiring marriage of past and present, two of the original copra shacks have been turned into a library and dive centre while the quest for excellence has brought together artisans from as far afield as Malawi, South Africa – and, of course, Seychelles.

The on-going process of conservation is at the very heart of North Island's philosophy and, as part of the Island's continuing endeavours to safeguard its environment, a programme of rat eradication has been successfully completed. This has paved the way for the return of at least three indigenous species of bird, all of them on the danger list: the Black Paradise Flycatcher, the Seychelles Warbler and, most important of all, the Seychelles Magpie Robin – one of the world's rarest birds.

North Island will continue to honour the policies that are enabling it to realise its goal of offering the highest standards of hospitality against a backdrop of sustainable, eco-friendly practice.

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