Hotel Description

Our guest rooms were built in 1992 and 1996, and have an open plan bedroom/living room/kitchen, plus balcony, bathroom and a shower that is almost outdoors! There is one queen bed or two twin beds, and the kitchen has a small propane refrigerator, a four burner stove with oven, a single sink, and is fully equipped with pots, pans, plates, dishes and utensils.

Of course, we hope that you will have most of your meals in our restaurant which is open every day for lunch and dinner. Although we do not open to the public for breakfast, we will be happy to prepare a Continental breakfast for our house guests. However, if you choose to make your own meals, you can either do grocery shopping on Tortola before you come to Cooper Island, or send us a list of provisions and we will stock your room prior to your arrival.

Please note that as there is no public electric supply on Cooper Island, the lighting and ceiling fans in the rooms are all powered by 12 Volt DC. There is one 110 Volt outlet in each room which can be used to recharge batteries for razors, camcorders etc. during the evening hours when our generator is on, but there is no facility for hair-dryers, electric irons or other electrical appliances.

Fresh water supply comes from the sky and is stored in a cistern under each room, from where it is pumped each day to a header tank on the hill behind the rooms. A solar hot water heater serves each building, and all the toilets are flushed with sea water.

There are no roads, cars, nightclubs, casinos, shopping malls or fast food outlets on Cooper Island; your principal activities will consist of sunbathing, swimming, reading, writing, enjoying relaxing meals in the restaurant, conversation at the bar. If you wish to be more active, you can hike around the island (it's too small to get lost!), or to the very peak of the island, with a 360 degree view.

Our History
TOBY HOLMES was born on Jersey, in the Channel Islands. Jersey is a small island 14 miles west of the Cherbourg peninsula of France, and about seventy miles south of the south coast of England. After a three year course in hotel management at Oxford Brookes University, Toby was admitted to membership of the Hotel and Catering International Management Association, and then spent three years in various management positions with British Transport Hotels, including a season at Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland. In 1978 he moved to the British Virgin Islands where he spent two years as deputy manager of Long Bay Hotel on Tortola.

CHRISTOPHER TILLING was born in Barford, Warwickshire, just a few miles from Stratford-upon-Avon. After several years captaining dinner-cruise barges on the River Avon, he moved to the British Virgin Islands in 1982 to take the post of Assistant Manager at Cooper Island, where he stayed for two years. Subsequently he worked as General Manager at Marina Cay Hotel, BVI; The Belizian, Belize; and Bald Head Island, North Carolina. In 1989 he returned to Cooper Island Beach Club as General Manager.

Originally a private house, the Beach Club was renovated and expanded in 1980 when Toby Holmes and Steven Pardoe acquired the lease and opened a new restaurant there on December 1st, 1980. From 1982 to 1988, they also owned and operated the Bernardston Inn in Bernardston, Massachusetts. In 1992 our first four guest rooms were built, and a further eight rooms were added in 1996. We have now been operating the Beach Club for over twenty three years and are looking forward to our twenty-fifth anniversary celebration in the year 2005!