Not long ago, Ocean Home magazine online published a piece I wrote on a high-end collection of villas in Providenciales in the Turks and Caicos, some built with the yacht owner in mind. A+A is pleased to reprint the feature today:

Arc was designed and built with the yacht-lover in mind.

The fully operational marina at South Bank offers 54 dock slips up to 60 feet, a 400-foot-long main dock, with six super-yacht slips up to 150 feet to be added soon.

We’re talking about a full-service marina with maintenance capability on any boat, plus dry dock and fuel – anything the well-heeled boat owner might need, including a concierge service. “You can have your boat cleaned up after a trip out on the ocean, on demand,” says Ingo Reckhorn, Director of Windward and Arc at South Bank. “There’s a centralized slip – you can go out, come back, then have it cleaned up and put it in storage, all with zero hassle.”

It’s a key amenity at South Bank, where 38 townhomes also lay claim to their own yacht slips. South Bank also offers two restaurants and bars, rental and property management services, plus tennis and pickleball courts. Then there’s the manmade lagoon, connected to the ocean. “It’s beachfront and salt water,” he says. “You can use the beach and not be affected by waves.”

Arc is six stories tall, and designed by Piero Lissoni, an Italian architect originally from Milan, now with a satellite office in New York. He specializes in high-end contemporary architecture for resorts and hotels in New York, Miami, and London. This is his first project in the Caribbean.

“Arc is special – it’s not a condo building, because we’ve tried to create a villa-like lifestyle combined with 360-degree views,” Reckhorn says. “The ocean is to the south and the flats and the lagoon are to the north.”

Lissoni’s assignment was to take advantage of the views indoors and out, and all around – using 50/50 indoor-outdoor spaces. Every villa has its own hot tub or pool – some have both – plus an outdoor kitchen, an outdoor shower, a garden. “It’s an indoor-outdoor lifestyle, elevated in a six-story building,” he says. “Some have pools up to 30 feet in length.”

The building is called Arc because its roofline is gently sloped up and down to look like an arc from the ocean. Its developer and architect were guided by two principles – first to create a building that was contemporary but soft in shape, with minimal impact on the natural setting. “We wanted a green building,” he says. “Each of its floors becomes smaller and smaller to lessen its impact.”

The other principle was to create units that have a very high ratio of outdoor-to-indoor space. “We wanted to transform a villa living experience to an elevated outlook, plus take advantage of the 360-degree views,” he says.

Reckhorn and his associates spent a great deal of time in planning, as they analyzed what the market desires in the Turks and Caicos were. They discovered that villa demand had grown stronger over the past few years. “So it was to be low density and villa-centric,” he says. “And it was driven by demand for more privacy and more space, and for multigenerational travel.”

Their overall site plan was centered around those ideas. “There are neighborhoods, and we have 2,000 feet of oceanfront footage and 19 oceanfront villas,” he says. “Then there’s the lagoon in the center for more waterfront.”

But yachts are the driving force behind this development. “From its location you can be out in the open water in 30 seconds, cruising or deep sea fishing, or exploring the islands in a heartbeat,” he says.

And if you’re not out on the Atlantic when the sun’s going down, consider the penthouse at Arc. It’s 12,700 square feet with five bedrooms and five-and-a-half baths. There’s a pool as well as a hot tub, plus multiple outdoor showers.

Eighty-five feet above the island with 360-degree waterfront views, it also come with its own super-yacht slip. “You can look down on your yacht directly from the penthouse while you’re enjoying the sunset over the water and having a drink,” he says. “It’s quite stunning.”

And quite a curve of the Arc.

For more, go here.