What do you for an encore when you’ve spent 65 years hosting royalty, presidents, celebs, and a legion of loyal guests? If you’re Half Moon, you take stock, re-evaluate, and start planning for the next 65.
And the result, says hotel chairman Guy Steuert III, is a thorough remake of one of Jamaica’s iconic properties, which has been five years in the planning, culminating in time for the property’s 65th anniversary in November.
And while the grand opening of the new-look Half Moon is set for April, the resort will be ready for high season, says Steuert, who explains, “We want to give time for the landscaping and things to work out (before the official opening).”
When the last nail is tapped in and final hibiscus takes root, the new Half Moon will feature:
• A new Great House entrance and lobby (in a new location)
• 57 new guestrooms and suites, including the East Cove Cottage block
• Expanded beachfront with a natural swimming cove
• Saltwater infinity pool
• Three new bars and two new restaurants – seafood-oriented Delmare, and The Great House Restaurant, specializing in buffet and freshly prepared dishes for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
In total, the resort will have 210 hotel rooms and 32 villas (with personal in-suite staff) scattered across its 161 hectares, including a golf course, and Fern Tree Spa.
Steuert points to the new Great House and Sunset Beach Pavilion as being two of the most striking features of the remake. The latter, featuring a jerk shack, bar and swimming lagoon, “will become a gravitational centre of the resort,” he says, while the former “is going to be the grand entry and the real signature moment for people arriving in the destination. It will really establish an identity for Half Moon… fashioned along the lines of Jamaica’s great houses.”
Half Moon’s chairman, whose family is part of the ownership group of the resort, assures that the character of the resort is not changing. “We’re building for authenticity, we’re respectful of history, but not stuck in history,” he told Travel Industry Today during a visit to the property recently, adding that the resort is mindful of local connections (such as buying local whenever possible) and especially the environment, such as maintaining a turtle release program on the property, eliminating the use of plastics, and other endeavours that Steuert says ensures that Half Moon is a “steward” of the environment – a status that has earned it a Green Globe Award.
Half Moon’s remake also took into consideration 830 hotel staff, some of whom have worked onsite for decades, including Wordsworth Watson, the longest-serving tourism worker in Jamaica (as acknowledged by the Jamaica Tourist Board). “To reward the people who worked for us… we built a new back-of-the-house complex to provide the best resources and tools and opportunities for our staff… It opened in October, 2017 and the effect on our staff and service levels has been quite measurable,” says Steuert.
Opened in 1954 on a .4 km-stretch of beachfront and 14 hectares of sugar plantation, Steuert recounts that Half Moon has expanded considerably (to what is now a 4.8-km-long sight) over the years.
But whereas he says, “nothing succeeds but success,” five years ago, ownership decided its famous resort needed to be re-examined and “took a step back to see how we could do things better… We looked at our footprint, looked at our brand and decided it was tarnished a bit, the world had passed us by. There were now 80,000-plus rooms on the island… that’s a lot of success and lot of different product.
“And here’s Half Moon, a singular resort owned by this family and others, and still trying to lead… So how do you continue to sustain yourself over the next six decades? Well, you be honest with yourself and you set foot on a redevelopment program.”
The result was that the resort was “master-planned for the first time in its life,” leading to the remake that is now coming to fruition and which Steuert says has “really captured the eyes and attention of the travel industry.”
“We redefined ourselves,” he says. “We created value propositions that we think are extra-ordinary that we hope will redefine us as the best Caribbean beach resort bar none. Hopefully, this will carry on to my successor and six decades hence when they address the successes we’ve all achieved in pushing Jamaica into the spotlight.”
For all that is new, Half Moon continues to offer the largest spa in the Caribbean at 63,000 sq. m., with diverse wellness offerings; a Robert Trent Jones Sr.-designed 18-hole championship golf course with golf academy; spinning studio; fitness centre with 11 flood-lit tennis courts; privately-operated equestrian centre; children’s village; water sports; shops, and more.
Located 10 minutes away from Montego Bay’s Sangster International Airport (MBJ), Half Moon is a member of the Preferred Hotels & Resorts Legend Collection and was recently voted among the top 50 resorts in the Caribbean by readers of Condé Nast Traveler.