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Cuillin:
the villa
Cuillin is a modern three-bedroom villa constructed for its original owners to a design based on their forty years experience of the needs of Barbados life. Built about four years ago, it provides the perfect setting for anyone who wants a peaceful retreat, with breezes to moderate the Caribbean temperatures. It is a single-storey house set in three-quarters of an acre of mahogany groves on a hillside a couple of hundred feet above sea level, at Sion Hill in the parish of St James, the most sought-after part of Barbados. Its basic layout is roughly ‘U’-shape around a deck with a pool, west-facing, with the three-bedroom sleeping wing to the north and the living accommodation to the south. With a pool in the deck child safety has been a particular design concern.
The links in this section show you panoramic pictures in which you can view the rooms at your own pace. To load quickly to your computer, these pictures are deliberately made quite low quality, but high quality versions are available to serious enquirers. The images are spinning when you first see them, the speed will depend on your computer. You can change the speed or zoom in and out using the instructions given.
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Layout. Click
on the floor-plan to enlarge it. The house
is approached up a short driveway
which leads to the main entrance and to a car port (with immediate access to the
kitchen for easy unloading of groceries etc.) Directly ahead is the sitting
room, from which a louvred door opens up onto the living and dining
deck. A small passageway leads to a large and well fitted kitchen
with granite worktops, and to the laundry room beyond. To the right of the main
entry is the bedroom
terrace, a large verandah which opens onto the pool
deck but which can be separated from it by decorative grille gates which
provide security when the house is unoccupied and when small children are
present. At the far end of this terrace is the master
bedroom suite, with a large bathroom
with a walk-in shower, cleverly
designed so that it appears to be open directly to the garden and forest,
although actually screened by planting and another security grille. This
bathroom is also accessible from Bedroom 3, currently being used as a
children’s room. Bedroom 2 has its own bathroom
with a full bath and shower, and again this has separate access in order to
serve as a cloakroom for the living area.
The
majority of the rooms are floored in Italian ceramic tiles, but hardwoods have
been used in the bedrooms and the sitting
room. All rooms have louvred cedar
shutters and security grilles. The house is provided with ample hot water via a
solar heating system which reduces utility bills.
The
pool is an asymmetric octagonal
design set in the hardwood (purpleheart) deck. The deck is fenced by
traditional-style Barbadian decorative wooden railings, and an additional fence
again separates the living area deck from the pool for child security. There is
generous deck space for entertaining or pool loungers, or for al fresco meals
under the shade of a mahogany tree, a dramatic feature which has been
incorporated into the house design and which emerges from beneath the deck.
Click here for additional pages on facilities and location and environment.