Peter Island Resort

“September 2017 is when everything stopped on Peter Island, when two angry sisters appeared: one by the name of Irma and the other by the name of Maria,” says David Van Andel, who grew up on Peter Island and is president of the eponymous private-island resort. Those “sisters” were a pair of powerful hurricanes that pummeled the idyllic isle within two weeks of each other, leaving a trail of devastation and shuttering the resort for the next seven years. Van Andel recalls crying upon first surveying the damage inflicted on the family-owned, 52-room property, which has, for more than four decades, employed generations of BVI families and provided respite for travelers with its 1,800 acres of tropical terrain and luxurious offerings. When it came time to rebuild, the resort's owners decided not to increase the resort’s room count but rather to heighten its level of luxury and restore its natural surroundings, including five postcard-worthy beaches. In December, Peter Island Resort reopened, complete with a full-service yacht club, a 10,000-square-foot oceanfront spa, and its signature sense of familial, laidback luxury. “It’s been a long journey,” Van Andel says, “but a worthwhile and rewarding one.”