Travel context: This story records my stay before its original publication. Property identity checked for this English edition: Strawberry Hill remains an Island Outpost hotel in Jamaica’s Blue Mountains. Rooms, services, and transfer arrangements may have changed since my visit.
Burning Spear sings, “It is good to live in the hills.” At Strawberry Hill, the line felt exactly right. High above Kingston, the mountain seemed full of life.
Into Jamaica’s Blue Mountains
If you find yourself in Kingston, the Blue Mountains deserve more than a distant look. I wanted to step into that green landscape, fill my lungs with the cooler mountain air, and feel the city’s noise fall away.
When I wrote the original story, Strawberry Hill occupied about 10 hectares at roughly 1,000 meters above sea level. From that 1,000-meter perch, Kingston lay far below. During our visit, the journey from the city took about 50 minutes. A helicopter arrival was possible then, but the road gave us its own adventure from the moment we left Kingston.
Once we reached the mountain slope, the road twisted past villages buried in thick green vegetation. The air grew fresher. Every turn sharpened my anticipation of arriving at one of the island’s most unusual hotels.
Then we seemed to reach the sky. Vegetation lay across the mountainsides like a continuous blanket, while Kingston appeared far below. I understood why Chris Blackwell had dreamed since childhood of owning Strawberry Hill and making it part of Jamaica’s story.
How Strawberry Hill got its name
According to the hotel’s account of its history, the Jamaican property was reputedly granted to the English writer Horace Walpole in 1780. Its elevation suited strawberries, and Walpole gave it the same name as his neo-Gothic estate near London.
The estate passed through several owners before Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records, bought it in 1972. Blackwell had visited as a child, and the purchase fulfilled a long-held dream.
Strawberry Hill soon became a refuge for musicians. According to the property’s history, Bob Marley convalesced here after being shot in 1976. Artists, writers, and musicians continued to return for the same sense of retreat.
The property’s current history records that Strawberry Hill opened to the public as a restaurant in 1986. Hurricane Gilbert destroyed the Great House in 1988, and Blackwell commissioned Jamaican architect Ann Hodges to begin rebuilding in 1991. In 1997, the hotel received Jamaica’s Governor-General’s Award for its design. Yet it never felt preserved in amber. The old character remained, but the hotel was still alive.
Chris Blackwell’s Strawberry Hill
Blackwell founded Island Records and helped carry reggae to a worldwide audience; the label’s artists included Bob Marley, U2, and many others. On the hotel’s ground floor, photographs of famous musicians and a collection of award-winning records made that musical history tangible.
Strawberry Hill was one of four Island Outpost hotels at the time. Each property had its own rhythm, but all carried Blackwell’s mix of independence, playfulness, and instinct for beauty.
The mountain rhythm
Strawberry Hill sits between the heat of the Kingston plain and the broadleaf forest higher in the Blue Mountains. Days still felt unmistakably Jamaican, but at night the temperature dropped and a welcome breeze moved through the property.
Luxury, stripped back
At the time of my visit, the hotel had 12 cottages in a traditional 19th-century Jamaican style, shaped by architect Ann Hodges and Chris Blackwell. The simplest description I can give is this: luxury reduced to the things that mattered in the mountain air.
The white cottages and pale roofs sat easily in the landscape. The architecture was quiet, and the patina of age was part of its appeal. The place wore its history openly, including the atmosphere of Jamaica’s British colonial era.
Local craftspeople had made elements of the interiors. Mint-and-rosemary toiletries drew their scent from the Blue Mountains, while crisp white bed linen was set off by bright African fabrics. This was Jamaican luxury as I understood it there: restrained, tactile, and inseparable from its setting.
And always, from the balcony, there was that view.
Each cottage had its own character and was surrounded by dense mountain vegetation. Narrow paths climbed and dipped across the property, inviting a walk in the cooler evening air. Kingston appeared through the morning haze and returned after dark as a scatter of lights.
Walking those paths, I would listen to the silence until the foliage suddenly opened onto an emerald lawn. A huge breadfruit tree stood in the middle, with mountains on every side. Just when I wanted to stop and sit in the heart of it, I noticed the wooden chairs already turned towards the view. They knew exactly how time should be spent here.
Throughout my stay, Strawberry Hill felt less like a hotel than the home of close friends: comfortable, calm, and in harmony with the mountain around it.
The sunset I still remember
And then came the sweetest part of Strawberry Hill: sunset. No, that is too small a word. This sunset filled every corner of the property, touching each leaf, branch, and roof tile.
We would return to the hotel in the evening knowing that the performance was about to begin. Before disappearing behind the Blue Mountains, the sun moved through orange, burgundy, and purple. Light caught drops of water on leaves and spiderwebs; shadows stretched across the slopes. Far below, Kingston would sharpen until I could make out white houses, then vanish into haze again. The silence felt complete, as if the mountain itself had stopped to watch.
The sunset was everywhere: on our balcony, across the terraces and verandas, and beside the breadfruit tree on the far side of the property. Every viewpoint changed it. But Strawberry Hill’s grandest seat was beside the infinity pool, set in the open center of the hotel with room to watch from almost any corner.
What can I say? It was the most beautiful sunset I saw in Jamaica.
The show began about an hour before the sun disappeared behind the mountains. It was probably the longest-lasting sunset I had ever watched.
The colors kept changing, warm tones giving way to cool ones. Even after darkness arrived, the sky stayed deep violet, mist gathered over the slopes, and Kingston’s lights began to glow below. I never wanted to leave.
