This Caribbean hotel spa is designed to resemble ‘a bathhouse carved from a hedge’

Grand Cayman’s Palm Heights Hotel has opened its wellness centre, which is modelled around garden design and the idea of well-being as a social activity.

Design studio FOOD New York created the hotel’s new spa space, named The Garden Club, in honour of its outdoorsy influences and al fresco atmosphere. They were briefed to draw on Grand Cayman’s lush, natural setting and create a wellness centre that felt like an alternative to the more traditional subterranean location of spas and bathhouses.

The Garden Club’s areas are divided by locally sourced, tropical vegetation walls reminiscent of garden mazes – the studio describes the spa as ‘a bathhouse carved from a hedge’.

The focus at Palm Heights Hotel is on being outdoors, with the spa offering open-air baths, plunge pools and a marble-clad hammam filled with waving palms. It’s intended as a social experience, although there are still plenty of enclosed spaces for privacy – including a ‘secret’ four-person pool fringed by plants.

Treatments on offer include lymphatic massage, breathwork and sound therapy. Guests checking in can also enjoy Palm Heights Hotel’s collection of sea view suites overlooking the white sand of Seven Mile Beach and its four on-site restaurants, which span Caribbean, Italian and Japanese cuisine.

Rooms start at around $629 per night.