By Alexander Britell and Guy Britton

Long Bay is shallow and calm, and at night the moon hits the obsidian sea as if it were some kind of secret lake.

It’s a moonscape you’ll almost never find in the Caribbean, silver and still, the water beaming and lightly rippling.

But there’s something else here that you won’t find anywhere else in the Caribbean.

Long Bay Beach is a short drive from Turks and Caicos’ famous Grace Bay Beach, but it’s also home to what just might be the most beautiful new hotel in the entire Caribbean, the Shore Club on Long Bay.

Turks and Caicos’ newest luxury resort is, plainly, a stunningly designed place, with 106 suites and a recently-completed collection of spectacular six-bedroom standalone villas.

It’s easy to think it hyperbole, but when you arrive here the quality of construction, the attention to detail and the sweeping excellence of the design can immediately overwhelm.

It’s a rare kind of thing, at once a hotel in the grand luxury resort tradition, at the same time a cutting-edge, design-forward property that reminds of the hippest hotels on South Beach.

That’s not a combination you ever find in the region — and the result is something remarkable.

It’s not a hotel in the traditional sense — it’s something more, a kind of a new category.

Because the rooms, whether junior suites or three-bedroom executive penthouses, are massive.

They are not just hotel rooms — they are fully equipped, fully outfitted, from state-of-the-art kitchens to their own dining rooms.

It all adds up to the experience of living in your own private residential club — with all of the amenities of a five-star luxury hotel.

That means amenities like a world-class spa set among the mangroves; three pools; the outstanding Japanese-Peruvian fusion eatery, Sui-Ren; a kids club.

So if you want to use your kitchen, you can — or you can eat every meal at the hotel, or get out and explore the culinary scene in Providenciales.

And at every corner, the design simply amazes; like the most iconic hotels, it has a kind of timeless look, like it’s been here forever – but, at the same time, construction just finished.

The Shore Club has 106 suites (along with a magnificent collection of spectacular six-bedroom villas that were just completed), but you’ll immediately be convinced you’re staying in a boutique hotel.

What the place has achieved is almost an entirely new level, a new category of luxury hotel: it’s a private club, a resort, a private residence and a boutique, all in one.

In other words, it’s the region’s new destination hotel.

For more, visit the Shore Club.

— CJ