The gracious Great House restaurant sits upon a foundation of ancient stone which echoes the history of plantation life in St. Lucia. The original estate house of Cap Estate, owned by Monsieur de Longueville, Military Commandant of St. Lucia, stood upon these stones roughly 250 years ago. The estate prospered until the early 1790’s when French revolutionary agents began to filter into St. Lucia with the full effects of the French Revolution following shortly after. A great upsurge of slaves destroyed many of the great houses during this violent time. The charming Cap House was among those that crumbled.

Comte de Brette, a distant relation of Monsieur de Longueville, reconstructed the Cap House into one of the most lavish and truly regal great houses of St. Lucia. The sugar operations also became one of the island’s most extensive. Sudden disaster struck in 1817, as a wailing hurricane brought down the walls of Cap House. After this fatal act of nature, sugar still reigned as the king crop, but the regal gatherings of the de Brette’s were fragments of history, remembered only by the sturdy, old stones of that same foundation, still firmly standing even from the years of Commandant de Longueville. The plantation house was not rebuilt. Only a meager wooden structure was raised to suffice as an estate office.

The estate was purchased by Lt. Colonel E. Harrison in the mid 1900’s. The retired British Colonel wished to recapture the enchantment and grandeur of the de Brette home, and carefully supervised the reconstruction of the Cap House in 1960. Dying in 1962, the colonel left behind his dream – the elegant Great House of Cap Estate, which today is one of St. Lucia’s best kept dining secrets, tucked away in this tropical expanse.