Mon | Jan 6, 2025

Dream House |West End property sits atop two subterranean caves

Published:Sunday | January 2, 2022 | 12:09 AM
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For the best dining and living experience, step down into your private cave below the property.
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For the best dining and living experience, step down into your private cave below the property.
Barry Rattray
Contributed
Barry Rattray
The main bedroom allows you to practically sleep outdoors.
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The main bedroom allows you to practically sleep outdoors.
What an inviting way to spend the rest of the day in the bathroom.
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What an inviting way to spend the rest of the day in the bathroom.
A relaxing atmosphere opening up to the seafront cliffs.
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A relaxing atmosphere opening up to the seafront cliffs.
The swimming pool simultaneously divides and unites the architecture in a stimulating presentation.
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The swimming pool simultaneously divides and unites the architecture in a stimulating presentation.
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We welcome 2022 in the unceasing spirit of adventure as we continue to exhaustively explore and uncover the unknown, outstanding and surprising residential architecture throughout the land, bringing it to national and international attention so as to inform, inspire and intrigue a nation hungry for positive distractions.

Caves, for millennia, have fascinated humankind as they inhabited and utilised them for exploration, scientific research, and recreation. Some of the world’s most iconic, outlandish architectural edifices have been built, with these natural underground caverns being the pivotal feature of the overall design.

On the most westerly section of the island, you will discover a thrilling dream house on the spectacular limestone cliffside with a mind-blowing hidden secret, concealed from all scrutinising eyes. The property sits phenomenally on top of two subterranean caves revealing their own natural seawater pool and built-in stone seating. This is another whole world of extraordinary living and dining for the residents, below the earth’s surface, as they watch from underground the dolphins at play out yonder in the deep blue waters.

So, without further ado, let’s avail ourselves of the wonders of this one-acre property, some 15 feet above sea level, with its stupendous sea views and refreshing sea breeze from most windows.

The architectural design is centred around a pool of water (with co-existing whirlpool spa), swimming right between two segments of the double-storey house, dividing and unifying the structure simultaneously. What is quite unique and interesting is that the one house has two distinctive exterior characteristics: traditional and modern, fused as one.

The three-bedroom, three-bathroom house (including a small one-bedroom cottage) unveils polished bamboo and jatoba flooring upstairs, with the master opening to a wraparound balcony.

The kitchen is twinned with both a traditional and an ultra-modern layout, serving a ceramic tiled-floor dining room, with the living area opening widely through 10 foot-tall glass doors to a terrace. There is a double carport area also under the metal roof system.

The very restful, airy, cream-coloured interior is furnished with exotic pieces imported from Bali, Indonesia, and grounded in nature.

With jobs in the tourism industry, the owners, both husband and wife, built the house on the West End Road, Negril, Westmoreland, 11 years ago.

Whether above or below the surface of the earth, the house assures the ideal leisure lifestyle beyond the conventional and the anticipated.

Barry Rattray is a dream house designer and builder. Email feedback to barry-rattray@hotmail.com and lifestyle@gleanerjm.com.