The Ocean Club, A Four Seasons Resort

Before Paradise Island meant water parks, it meant the Ocean Club. Opened in 1962 by A&P heir Huntington Hartford as a private retreat, the estate's centrepiece remains astonishing: terraced formal gardens modelled on Versailles, rising through fountains and bronzes to the Cloisters, the remains of a twelfth-century French monastery shipped across the Atlantic and reassembled stone by stone above Nassau Harbour. Daniel Craig's Bond checked in during Casino Royale, and the setting has lost none of that polish.

Under Four Seasons management the hotel itself matches the grounds. Rooms, suites and villas line a five-mile ribbon of white-sand beach in low colonial-style wings and cottages, done in a breezy ocean palette; service operates at the brand's highest register. Dunes, the signature restaurant by Jean-Georges Vongerichten, leads the dining, with terraces catching the trade winds.

Days divide between the beach, the adults-oriented Versailles pool, tennis and pickleball, and the Tom Weiskopf-designed Ocean Club golf course next door. Families are welcomed with a kids-for-all-seasons programme, though the estate's temper is graceful rather than boisterous—guests wanting slides and aquariums can day-trip to Atlantis and return to the quiet. Among Caribbean grandes dames, few blend heritage, gardens and beach so completely.