Five-star Saint-Jean, Gustavia
Eden Rock St Barths
The first hotel on St Barth, built in 1953 on a rocky promontory in St Jean Bay, three minutes from the airstrip and rated Five-Star by Forbes.
Opens the hotel's own website. We have no arrangement with the hotel.
- Forbes Travel Guide
- Five-Star, 2026
- Rooms
- 37 rooms, suites and villas
- Opened
- 1953
- From the airstrip
- About 3 minutes
The hotel
A rock in St Jean Bay.
In 1953 Rémy de Haenen, an aviator and artist, bought a rocky promontory in the middle of St Jean Bay and built the first hotel on the island on top of it. Howard Hughes, Robert Mitchum and Greta Garbo came to stay, and Garbo is said to have checked in for three days under a false name and stayed three weeks. Some of the suites on the rock are now themed after these early guests.
David and Jane Matthews bought Eden Rock from de Haenen in 1995 and restored and extended it, and in 2014 they brought in Oetker to run it. Hurricane Irma badly damaged the hotel in 2017. After two years of rebuilding it reopened in 2019 with a redesigned Sand Bar, a new spa and the Rémy Bar, named after the founder. Two more suites and a room followed in 2020, one of them named after Jane Matthews and her two daughters-in-law.
- Legacy Suites Suites themed on the hotel's early guests, among them Greta Garbo and Howard Hughes, up on the rock above the bay.
- Villa Rockstar Six bedrooms over 16,000 square feet, with a private chef and a butler.
- Eden Rock Spa Ligne St Barth treatments in the suite, on the terrace or on the beach, with a fitness room for yoga and personal training.
Rooms & suites
On the rock, in the garden, on the sand.
Thirty-seven rooms, suites and villas in eleven types, decorated with antiques and original art.
- Rooms Rooms and suites From about 450 square feet, on the rock, in the gardens or along St Jean beach.
- Beach villa Villa Nina On the beach, with stone terraces, its own art gallery and a whisky bar of forty labels.
- The largest Villa Rockstar Six bedrooms and 16,000 square feet, with a private chef and a butler.
Dining
Lunch on the sand, drinks at the Rémy.
Restaurants and bars as listed by Forbes Travel Guide and The World's 50 Best Hotels. Shown for information.
- Sand Bar Mediterranean, seafood, wood-fired pizza Jean-Georges Vongerichten; room by Martin Brudnizki
- Rémy Bar & Salon Cocktails and small plates Named after the founder, Rémy de Haenen
- Beach Bar Drinks A tiered sundeck on St Jean beach
Recognition
Awards and listings.
- Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star, 2026
- The World's 50 Best Hotels No. 36 in 2024, No. 41 in 2023
Good to know
Before you go.
- Breakfast A buffet breakfast is included for hotel guests.
- Next door The airstrip at Saint-Jean is about three minutes away.
Getting there
Flying to Gustavia.
Long-haul flights land on St Maarten, and a small plane takes about a quarter of an hour to reach the Saint-Jean airstrip, about three minutes from the hotel. Private jets land at Princess Juliana on St Maarten, where a chartered propeller aircraft or a helicopter can cover the last stretch.
- San Juan 45 min
- Miami 2 h 55
- New York 3 h 55
- London 8 h 55 long-range jet
- Paris 9 h 10 long-range jet
Questions
What guests ask first.
- Is Eden Rock the oldest hotel on St Barth?
- Yes. Rémy de Haenen built it in 1953, and Forbes Travel Guide describes it as the first hotel on the island.
- How far is Eden Rock from the St Barth airstrip?
- About three minutes. The hotel and the airstrip share St Jean Bay.
- Who runs Eden Rock today?
- The Matthews family has owned it since 1995, and Oetker has managed it since 2014. It reopened in 2019 after the rebuild that followed Hurricane Irma.
- Can SkyCourtage arrange the flight to Gustavia?
- Yes. We arrange Business and First Class seats on scheduled airlines and private jet charter to Gustavia, with one final price, our margin included. The hotel is booked with the hotel or through our booking partner.
Also in Gustavia
Other hotels worth the trip.
- Cheval Blanc St-Barth Isle de France The only certified Palace on the island, on the Baie des Flamands, and its only hotel with three MICHELIN Keys.
- Le Barthélemy Hotel & Spa The first hotel built from the ground up on St Barth in twenty years, on the bay of Grand Cul-de-Sac.
- Airelles Le Guanahani A peninsula of its own, given two Keys under Rosewood and reopening under Airelles on 1 November 2026.
- Hotel Christopher High on Pointe Milou, apart from the busier bays, with an easy and unpretentious welcome.
- Le Sereno Designed throughout by Christian Liaigre, the name behind the Mercer in New York.
- Tropical Hotel St Barth The second hotel ever to open on the island, above the bay of Saint-Jean, since thoroughly renovated.
- Gyp Sea Saint Barth A Sibuet family house at Colombier, styled on the old plantation homes of the islands.
- Hotel Manapany A beach in a residential corner, closer to everyday island life than its grander neighbours.
- Fouquet’s Saint-Barth The former Carl Gustaf, on the hillside above the harbour, one of the island’s classic grandes dames.
- Hôtel Le Toiny Twenty-two suites on the hillside above Anse de Toiny, each with its own heated pool, and a beach club down at the shore.
Staying at Eden Rock St Barths?
Book the room, then the flight.
Rates and availability come from the hotel itself. For the journey to Gustavia, a Business or First Class seat or an aircraft of your own: tell us the date and we come back with one final price, our margin included.
Opens the hotel's own website. We have no arrangement with the hotel.