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Fouquet’s Saint-Barth Takes the High Ground in Gustavia

The newly rechristened Carl Gustaf trades beachfront real estate for something the island's superyacht set can't buy off a stern deck: perspective.

A property on St. Barths has been renamed and, in keeping with island tradition, nobody much noticed. Fouquet’s Saint-Barth—formerly Hotel Barrière Le Carl Gustaf, formerly-formerly just the Carl Gustaf since Jacques Laurent opened the place in 1991—is now the fourth property in the Fouquet’s Signature Collection, joining Paris, New York and Courchevel. The rebrand is, by the hotel’s own admission, cosmetic. Interiors remain unchanged from the most recent 2020 renovation, the 21 suites on the hill above Gustavia’s harbor are still beachfront-free, and the infinity pool you’re imagining doesn’t exist. What’s new is the nameplate and the implicit promise that this address now sits at the top of a portfolio rather than the middle. Whether that warrants a new set of monogrammed towels is a question best left to the accountants.

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It may not need the branding refresh, but it could use the reminder. Saint Barthélemy—the 11-square-mile volcanic speck that France once traded to Sweden for warehouse rights in Gothenburg, then bought back a century later for a meager 320,000 francs—has entered a phase that makes its colonial transactions look quaint. Tom Brady and TikTok star Alix Earle produced a week of tabloid wreckage from a single New Year’s Eve dance floor. Bethenny Frankel called the holiday........

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