The handover and the dates
Rosewood ceases managing Le Guanahani St. Barth on 1 October 2026. Airelles reopens the property on 1 November 2026. The buyer is Stéphane Courbit, founder of LOV Group, who takes the hotel through his holding company and adds it to the Airelles collection.
The exit sits in a notice on Rosewood's own global website. Le Journal de Saint-Barth reproduces the wording: "Effective October 1, 2026, Rosewood will cease managing the Rosewood Le Guanahani St. Barth as part of the property's transition to a new owner and operator." The notice says existing reservations stay confirmed and rates stay unchanged for the time being.
The price
No transaction value has been disclosed. Real estate sources in Saint-Barthélemy tell Le Journal de Saint-Barth the figure could exceed 200 million euros, which the paper calls a record for a hotel sale on the island.
The heirs of the previous owner ran a competitive process. The same paper reports that a local real estate source said they chose from seven to eight purchase offers, and that the LOV Group and Airelles submission was the most compelling.
One number is public. The Territorial Collectivity collects registration fees of 5 per cent of the sale price, which Le Journal de Saint-Barth puts at a few million euros.
Why the management contract ended
La Revue des Hôtels reports that Rosewood's management contract carried a 2026 exit clause. The death of the owner, the American financier David Bonderman, moved the sale forward. Le Journal de Saint-Barth dates that death to December 2024. The heirs did not want to retain the hotel and invoked the clause that let them terminate the management agreement.
Courbit tracked the asset for years. Le Journal de Saint-Barth reports, citing Les Échos and Le Figaro, that he expressed interest in Le Guanahani as early as 2019.
The asset
Le Guanahani is the largest hotel on Saint-Barthélemy. It holds 66 rooms, suites and signature suites. The site covers about 7.3 hectares on a private peninsula between Marigot Bay and the Grand Cul-de-Sac lagoon, with two beaches. The sale includes two swimming pools, a spa, a restaurant and employee housing, per Le Journal de Saint-Barth. La Revue des Hôtels gives the estate as seven hectares and adds tennis courts and bars.
The property opened in 1986. Hurricane Irma closed it in September 2017. Le Journal de Saint-Barth records more than three years of rebuilding before it reopened under the Rosewood banner in November 2021.
Two operators
Rosewood has run the hotel for the past six years. Four of its properties sit in the world's 50 best hotels list, and Rosewood Hong Kong holds the top spot globally for the second consecutive year, per La Tribune de l'hôtellerie as cited by Le Journal de Saint-Barth.
Airelles is the French collection built from Les Airelles de Courchevel, which Courbit bought in 2007. Le Journal de Saint-Barth puts the collection's founding at 2017. Its houses run from Courchevel and Val d'Isère to La Bastide de Gordes, Le Grand Contrôle at Versailles, the Château de la Messardière and the Pan Deï Palais in Saint-Tropez, and the Palladio in Venice. La Revue des Hôtels counts about ten hotels after this operation, and Airelles' own sitemap publishes ten destination pages, Saint-Barthélemy among them.
Saint-Barth is Airelles' first beachfront property and its first house in the Caribbean. The collection already runs the Palladio in Venice outside France. The operating teams stay on.
The market it enters
Saint-Barth is a micro-palace market. Le Guanahani is the one address on the island with full resort scale, per La Revue des Hôtels: two beaches, a complete spa, and facilities for children.
Airelles brings a winter clientele that knows the island. La Revue des Hôtels reports that a large share of the collection's ski-season guests are American and already travel to Saint-Barth, and that the brand gains the sun destination its Alpine houses lacked.
Hurricane exposure comes with the asset. Hurricane Irma closed the property in 2017. La Revue des Hôtels notes that owning the walls of a Caribbean beach resort means accepting the hurricane cycle, and that the risk sits with the owner.
What changes by 1 November
Four weeks separate Rosewood's exit from the Airelles reopening. La Revue des Hôtels reads the short gap as evidence that no heavy building work is planned in the near term. The property was rebuilt in full five years ago. The paper places the coming work on service, dining and experiences.
Le Journal de Saint-Barth reports that the teams stay on. A source at the property says there will be no structural changes, that arriving guests will notice some cosmetic changes, and that the plan is to move upmarket. No Airelles press release has announced the takeover or the property's future plans. The brand's own Saint-Barthélemy page carries a live countdown reading "Saint-Barthélemy is calling. Opening November 1st, 2026," above a booking form.
The design question
One Mile at a Time surfaced the rebranding on 17 September 2026. Its writer, Ben Schlappig, raises the standard of the physical plant. He notes the Creole cottage architecture and one restaurant, against several at most Airelles houses. He reads the transfer as Airelles acting as a conversion brand and expects renovation investment to follow.
La Revue des Hôtels records the same question from the specialist press. It dates the answer to 1 November, when the first guests see what four weeks changed.