The Mexican architect Manolo Mestre designed the arrangement of structures to embody an ‘alone together’ ethos.

Mention Mustique and you may think of The Crown, Princess Margaret and the celebrities who followed her there to be able to live a life of glamour without the glare of publicity. The aura of exclusivity and barefoot luxury on the jewel-like Caribbean island is still true today. “The idea is to be able to get away from putting on a show; to be truly yourself,” says Samantha Chartouni, a former model who, with her husband, bought a villa on five acres of lushly forested hilltop in 2017. A three-year renovation project followed, now complete. Chartouni named the villa “Paraiba” after the rare, sparkling blue-green gemstone. “These are the colours you see from here.”

That’s not all you see. The elevated 270-degree view lets you marvel at the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. On some days you can see sheets of rain off one side of the island and clear dry heat off the other. You may even glimpse Grenada on the horizon, more than 60 miles away, while whales play in the foreground. She scoured the Grenadines for landscaping inspiration, plus specific plants and trees, including 50 Christmas palms, gum trees that twist and turn like living sculpture and fragrant white-blossoming frangipani.

One of the pools is contoured to the Palapa

“If you don’t control nature here, nature will control you,” she says with a Robinson Crusoe-like spirit of adventure. Her family owns the Lowell Hotel in New York’s Upper East Side, but that could hardly have prepared her for this. Exotic bird life and fireflies join an evening chorus of cicadas and frogs along with the trickle of water features, one of which could be mistaken for a spring-fed stream.

Seven staff members look after the property and guests

The Mexican architect Manolo Mestre designed the arrangement of structures to embody an “alone together” ethos. It lets residents retreat to the sanctuary of one of seven bedroom suites, while providing inviting gathering places: a palapa[a thatched open-sided structure] 60ft in diameter and 40ft high that took two months to thatch; a gazebo lounge; a room for entertainment with billiards and table tennis; a yoga pavilion, and a gym resembling a state-of-art “crow’s nest” with windows that open on all sides to the fragrant breeze (was there ever a greater incentive to hit the Peloton bike?). It all looks like a sophisticated tree-house arrangement complete with wooden walkways, rope railings and magical lanterns. Chartouni found inspiration in Mexico too, discovering translucent alabaster for basins and Cocobolo rosewood for the palapa’s long table.

The villa resembles a sophisticated tree house arrangement complete with wooden walkways

Seven staff members look after the property and guests, providing everything from rum punches to massages (there’s even a treatment suite). The cooking draws on the bountiful ingredients to hand: eggs from hens kept on the property; papayas, mangoes and limes; fresh basil from the herb garden used in the creations emerging from the pizza oven. The house, available to rent, is perfect for those looking for somewhere for a long Christmas break — and is in possession of a small fortune, of course.

Helena Bonham Carter as Princess Margaret in The Crown

Of course there is a pool — 80ft long and contoured to the palapa — plus another pool below, and a tennis court with floodlights for cooler evening play. There are also glass-bottomed kayaks and a hammock for exploration of the beaches, one of which has a bar called Basil’s. Its owner was rescued by the Scottish aristocrat — and creator of Mustique as it is today — Colin Tennant, and he went on to serve cocktails to everyone from the late Princess Margaret, Mick Jagger, Billy Joel, Kate Moss, Christie Brinkley and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Paraiba is available to rent from £41,000 a week excluding taxes mustique-island.com