120 TRAVEL + LEISURE / JANUARY 2017
Unwinding at Goblin Hill Villas.
Solid & Striped one-piece, Khaite jeans,
Tiffany & Co earrings.
Opposite: Williams
and friend Aneita Moore at Crystal Cove.
On Williams: Chanel cardigan and dress;
on Moore: Tory Burch dress, Tomas Maier
bikini. Straw hats: stylist’s own.lobster and fi sh is out of this world.
And then of course you have to have a
few festivals.” (For the uninitiated, a
festival is like a sweet fritter. )
Williams has come a long way
from Hellshire. She’s currently one of
the most sought-after models in the
business, having shot campaigns for
Valentino and walked the runways for
Dolce & Gabbana and Calvin Klein.
New York and Paris may off er her
fame and fortune, but Jamaica is the
place that grounds her. “Tami was
so excited to bring us somewhere she
knew, somewhere she felt at home ,”
says photographer Jerome Corpuz,
who, along with T+L fashion editor
Melissa Ventosa Martin, travelled with
Williams across the island.
The crew made its way to Port
Antonio, another under-the-radar
spot, where Williams met up with her
friend, fellow Jamaican model Aneita
Moore. Set on the north-eastern coast,
the town was a popular escape for the
likes of Errol Flynn, Dean Martin, and
Elizabeth Taylor in the 1950s, but had
fallen off Hollywood’s radar by the 80s.
It still attracts a discerning clientele,
however. Williams brought the group
along to the unspoilt beaches and bays
that Port Antonio is still famous for,
like tiny Frenchman’s Cove, wide,
expansive San San Bay, and the jungle-
shrouded Blue Lagoon. “Everything in
Port Antonio is a bit tucked away—you have to work to fi nd
it,” says Corpuz, who stayed at Crystal Cove, while the rest
of the crew based themselves at its sister property, Goblin
Hill Villas at San San , and the elegant Trident Hotel. “In
another era, people used to come with their yachts. Now, the
scene is just mellow and beautiful.” —Jacqueline Giff ordI
t was business as usual at Celine’s, on Hellshire Beach,
when model Tami Williams dropped in on a gloriously
clear Wednesday afternoon this summer. The no-frills,
brightly coloured seafood restaurant was well into lunch
service, dishing up heaping plates of fresh lobster, fi sh,
rice, and beans to the mostly local crowd that frequents
the half-mile swath of sand near Kingston. The handful
of sun-seekers who had made the trek sipped Red
Stripes as the waves lapped the shore, the day grew long, and
the dinner throngs began to roll in.
This lesser-known, arguably more authentic side of
Jamaica—a place far from the manicured resort towns of
Montego Bay and Ocho Rios—is where Williams feels at
ease. She was raised in Kingston and St Elizabeth Parish ,
and grew up going to Hellshire with friends and family.
“Hellshire is the real Jamaica,” said Williams, who took
Travel + Leisure on a tour of her favourite spots , wearing
our top picks from the new resort collections. “The way
the restaurants here prepare their fried or steamed122 TRAVEL + LEISURE / JANUARY 2017