Review: Villa APE St Barthelemy (WIMCO Villas)

See our full video walkthrough of our private St. Barth villa!

Ah Saint Barthèlemy how you stole our hearts. Whether you call it St Barts or St Barths like most Americans, or St Barth like the French, once you spend one day on this beautiful luxurious island and you will never want to leave.

St Barth is one of the four French Caribbean Island territories. The other three are Saint Martin (not to be confused with Sint Maarten a Dutch territory), Guadeloupe and Martinique.

Where to Stay on St Barts

There are two main types of accommodation on St Barth, either ultra-luxury expensive hotels, or ultra-luxury expensive villas. Which route you go essentially depends on if you value onsite amenities more, or value privacy, seclusion and your own personal infinity pool. We choose the latter ????

Check out our St Barth island guide to get a better feel for where to stay and what to do once on the island.

Things to do on St Barthelemy

St Barth is known for beautiful beaches, private villas and extraordinary cuisine. I’ll give a quick overview in this post, but be sure to check out our full St Barth island guide for more detail.

There are 14 total beaches on the island. Some of them are more private and secluded than others, but all are unique and beautiful on their own way.

The food and drink on St Barth is amazing, but expect to pay top dollar. Since this island is a French territory, everything is in Euros, and since it’s an island, things are just a little bit more expensive. The benefit is that being a French territory, it isn’t hard to find a great bottle of wine or champagne at a reasonable price.

We enjoyed dinners at Tamarin, Le Serano and Bonito for three of our four nights, and had dinner at our villa one night.

You’ll definitely have to experience one of the Sunday day parties at Nikki Beach.

One of my personal favorite things to do was watch planes land and take off from the Saint Barthelemy SBH airport. It’s one of the shortest landing strips in the world (Saba is the shortest). Planes fly right overhead and have to make it over the hill, and then have to dip back down to sea level and slow down to land on the short runway. It’s a pretty neat experience.

Jess ran out of the way because this plane was so close!

How We Booked Our St Barth Villa

There are several companies that rent villas, WIMCO Villas is the largest and most well-known, this is the company we ultimately ended up going with.

Some of the others include Si Barth, St Barts Blue and Exceptional Villas.

Generally the villa companies add about a 10% service charge on top of the cost of the villa rental (and probably take some of the profits from the villa owner as well. Keep that in mind when you are searching for properties within your budget.

The service charge covers the obvious cost of the villa agent and website, but also includes some great perks as well, such as a personal concierge, daily continental breakfast in the villa, and day trip supplies such as a beach tote bag, soft cooler, hats, bottle opener and a small bottle of the island’s famous rum.

The standard is to rent a villa for a week, but some owners will rent it for as short as 3-4 days. We unfortunately had multiple islands to visit on this trip, so we were only there for 4 nights. Next time it will be a week!

If you are looking to stay at a hotel, the list includes Cheval Blanc, Hotel Manapany, Pearl Beach Hotel, Hotel Eden Rock (recently opened after the devastating hurricane), Hotel Christopher, Le Serano, Le Guanahani, Le Barthelemy Hotel & spa, and Hotel Le Toiny.

WIMCO Villa Personal Concierge

The best perk was having our personal concierge, Lucas, who was extremely helpful, proactive and knowledgeable. He met us at the airport, helped us pick up our rental car, took us to the nearest electronic boutique where they were he held a Go Pro for us (we lost one 2 days earlier), then helped us with shopping and then showed us to the villa and gave us a tour.

While the villa itself was stunning and came with priceless views, having Lucas was the best part! When we discovered that one of our bags didn’t make it on the flight (common for Air Antilles, don’t book them if possible!), he filed a claim with the airline and made sure the bag was returned the next day to our villa. It would have been impossible for me to deal with the airline’s poor customer service, especially speaking English.

Every morning he would leave out a spread of fantastic French pastries so it was waiting for us when we woke. He would also text us every morning to see what our plans were. He would then give us suggestions, make reservations and was able to reserve us tables at any restaurant without a problem.

On top of everything, just after departing from St Barth I realized I didn’t have my sunglasses with me (they were a fairly expensive graduation present). I had thought I left them at the villa so I texted him to see if they were found. About 30 minutes later he responded that they had been left in the rental car! What amazing detective work!

It is safe to say that he was a big part about what made our entire stay so enjoyable and we very much appreciated his assistance.

Getting to the Villa & Location

Finding the villa was easy the first time since Lucas personally escorted us there. Otherwise it would have been a nightmare. Most of the roads are unmarked, but google maps is pretty accurate.

The villa is in a perfect location overlooking Eden Rock and St Jean beach. It’s just 5 minutes from the airport and Marchè U, 10 minutes from Gustavia and 15 minutes from the most remote spots on the island.

Private Outdoor Patio and Pool Villa APE St Barthelemy

As you can tell from the pictures, the villa and view were gorgeous. After walking through the outer locked gate, we entered the main outdoor villa patio.

There were various arrangements of seating including a table with chairs, cushioned seats, pool lounge chairs and an L shaped couch. There was plenty of room to have 20-30 people over at the villa. Or you could keep it as quiet and secluded as you wished.

We chose the villa for the pool and views. As you walked out towards the end of the pool, the views became even more extraordinary.

Lounging by the pool was our favorite way to start (and end) every day. When looking for a villa on St Barts I recommend finding one with the most beautiful views as you will be spending the majority of your time outside.

Inside St Barts Private Villa

The villa itself wasn’t huge, but was plenty of room for Jess and I. It would even be enough with a second couple there (they can open an additional room as well).

The main room had a dining table straight ahead and the kitchen to the right. On the dining table were several WIMCO gifts that came in handy as we day tripped around the island. A beach tote bag, flexible cooler bag, hats, small bottle of rum and a bottle opener.

Additionally, there was a map of the island, our itinerary for our stay, food/dining recommendations and a brochure showing some of the properties available for sale on the island. And yes the properties are every bit as expensive as they are beautiful

The decoration was a cute beach them with mint green. It was a fully equipped kitchen with a full-size refrigerator, freezer, stove, oven and microwave.

There were plenty of plates and cups, including wine glasses, champagne glasses and even whisky glasses

There were all the cooking utensils you could need including food scale, cheese grater, ice cream scoop, nut cracker and pizza slicer. This villa was more well equipped than our own kitchen!

There was also a Nespresso machine in the pantry that we made good use of.

To the left of the room was the living room. It was situated by a beautiful wide-open window that also offered stunning views of the beach below.

The bedroom was right off of the living room through a locked door. We appreciated that the bedroom door had a separate key than the outside villa. This allowed the concierge and others to enter the villa, but still keep the bedroom door locked.

Again was that same beautiful view of Eden Rock and the St. Jean beach below.

Overall Impression

If you couldn’t tell, we thoroughly enjoyed our trip to St. Barth. A large part of that reason was our private villa and our concierge who was amazing at setting us up with the beast itineraries each day and evening. We recommend staying at a villa (with stunning views) rather than staying at a hotel. The price is comparable, but the freedom and perks and concierge with a villa can’t be beat.