Travel / Hotels & Resorts · Dominica
What began with drawings for a family home has grown into a collection of villas, art and garden-led dining on Dominica’s northwest coast. Fifteen years on, the landscape still shapes the next chapter.
Secret Bay began with a wedding gift. Venezuelan architect Fruto Vivas drew a design for a home for his daughter, Sandra, and her husband, Gregor Nassief, on a forested stretch of Dominica’s northwest coast. The couple’s private retreat would become the starting point for a resort.
That beginning gives Secret Bay a more personal history than its scale might suggest. Today, 27 villas operate across four enclaves near Portsmouth, their positions shaped by the hillsides, vegetation and promontories above the Caribbean Sea. The buildings are dispersed through the landscape, with space between them and different outlooks towards the forest and water.
“When we started fifteen years ago, the idea was to grow slowly and with care,” Nassief said in the resort’s anniversary announcement. “As we expanded, we gave each villa more space and privacy, while preserving more of the land and its natural surroundings.”
A home, then a hillside of villas
Vivas’s original drawings established the architectural direction. Resident architect Claude Lauture has carried that work forward, responding to the changes in elevation and the shape of the land as new villas have been added.
The result is a collection of settings within one property. Some villas look out from elevated positions; others sit closer to the vegetation. Choosing where to stay involves choosing that relationship with the landscape as much as a room configuration.
There is a similar attention to place in the materials. Guyanese Greenheart hardwood features in the villas’ construction, while Dominican Red Cedar is worked into furniture by local craftspeople. Alongside the larger architectural gestures, those pieces bring the work of Dominican makers into the rooms.
The story has expanded beyond the home Vivas first imagined, but it has kept the idea of individual places to stay, each with its own position on the hillside.
Art, food and a reason to leave the villa
Private accommodation is only part of Secret Bay’s appeal. Its shared spaces draw guests into other aspects of the property, from the gallery at Bwa Denn to the garden at Botanica.
At Bwa Denn, dining and art occupy the same two-level destination. The kitchen and rooftop terrace sit alongside a gallery of contemporary Caribbean and Latin American work. It gives the resort a place for looking as well as eating, and brings a wider creative world into its coastal setting.
Botanica takes the food story outdoors. Set beside the Cario River, its organic garden and chef’s table centre meals on what the property grows and forages. At Zing Zing, the seasonal open-air restaurant, Chef Allison Lo’s six-course Discovery Menu offers another expression of the culinary programme. Dining plans should be confirmed when booking, as opening dates and menus can change.
Together, these places give a stay several different rhythms: time in the villa, a meal in the garden, art at Bwa Denn or dinner at Zing Zing. Beyond the property, Dominica’s rainforest, marine environment and cultural life provide the setting for outings arranged through the concierge.
The next chapter
Secret Bay’s remaining Waterfront and Cliffside enclaves will take the resort towards a planned 42 villas across six enclaves. The six proposed Cliffside villas, designed by Lauture above Coconut Beach, are expected to be completed in 2029. Plans also include two additional spas and a family pool pavilion near the beach.
The additions would broaden the resort’s shared spaces while continuing its pattern of separate villa enclaves. “For me, that has always been what matters most, the luxury of time and space and the preservation of nature,” he said in the same announcement.
