Golden Eye Resort Hotel

Golden Eye Resort Hotel

In a bedroom overlooking the Caribbean Sea in Oracabessa, Jamaica, Ian Fleming once typed 2,000 words a day until Casino Royale was finished, then kept going until all thirteen James Bond novels were written on the same bluff. That bluff is now Golden Eye Resort Hotel, twenty-two rooms scattered across a coastline of secluded coves and private beaches, a few minutes from James Bond Beach itself. Owned today by Island Records founder Chris Blackwell, the property keeps the pace loose: mornings by the pool or with the on-site diving club, afternoons in the library or at the spa, evenings at the bar or restaurant, with English-speaking staff throughout. Rooms are simple rather than plush, a 420-square-foot garden-view double, a 1,098-square-foot garden-view villa, or an 800-square-foot ocean-view villa, each fitted with a DVD player, minibar and bathrobe but nothing more ornate. Anyone wanting a large full-service resort should look elsewhere; this is twenty-two rooms, a conference hall for small meetings, and playrooms that keep children occupied while parents book a massage. Couples get privacy in the coves, families get a children's pool, and Wi-Fi and parking come free either way. What no rival on this coast can offer is the actual room where the most famous spy in fiction was invented, chapter by chapter, over thirteen books. Pets are not allowed, and a deposit and photo ID are required at check-in. It reads less like a hotel and more like a manuscript you can sleep in, and for readers of a certain age, that outweighs the thread count. This is the room where Ian Fleming wrote all thirteen James Bond novels, now twenty-two rooms and private villas on a Jamaican coastline of secluded coves, owned by Chris Blackwell. It suits readers and quiet mornings more than resort crowds; families get playrooms, couples get the coves to themselves.