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Island size87 sq km, 37 named beaches
Peak season14 Dec to 14 Apr (Christmas/NY peak)
Terres Basses 4BR peak$22,000 to $36,000 / wk
Trophy 8BR peak$48,000 to $68,000 / wk
Last updated2026-05
St. Martin and Sint Maarten share an 87-square-kilometer island in the north-east Caribbean, split between French Saint-Martin (the northern 60 percent) and Dutch Sint Maarten (the southern 40 percent) since the 1648 Treaty of Concordia. The villa rental market splits six ways. Terres Basses on the French south-west carries the trophy gated-estate stock with the deepest editorial inventory. Plum Bay and Baie Rouge inside the Terres Basses gated community carry the beach-frontage estates. Cupecoy on the Dutch west carries the modern cliff and beach-frontage stock with Maho Bay and Mullet Bay adjacent. Oyster Pond on the east border carries the marina-frontage stock with the St Barts ferry routing. Anse Marcel and Grand Case-adjacent on the French north carry the historic-village walking stock. Pelican Key and Simpson Bay on the Dutch south carry the airport-edge value position.
The peak window is December through April. The absolute peak is the 20 December through 03 January window (Christmas-and-New-Year), with the 14 February to 14 April window the secondary peak (Presidents’ Day, school spring break, Easter). Saturday-to-Saturday is the standard cadence at most editorial-grade properties, with Christmas-and-New-Year holding a 10-to-14 night minimum at the agency-managed tier. The 14 December through 14 April window is the calibration-quality window with no named-storm risk in recorded history. The hurricane season (1 June through 30 November) is closed-season for most operator-managed properties; the May and late November shoulder windows open to 5-to-7 night bookings at 40 to 55 percent below winter-peak rates.
Editorial-grade St. Martin villa rates run $18,000 to $68,000 per week at peak. A four-bedroom Terres Basses or Cupecoy villa with pool sits at $18,000 to $32,000. A six-bedroom Terres Basses or Oyster Pond frontage estate sits at $32,000 to $48,000. The trophy beach-frontage compounds (8-plus bedrooms, direct beach access, full staff) sit at $48,000 to $68,000 and up. WIMCO operates the deepest agency-managed St. Martin inventory; verified named villas include Villa Imagine (5BR Terres Basses Hillside), Villa Pamplemousse (6BR Les Terres Basses exclusive community), Villa Lotus (3BR Terres Basses), Villa Encore (6BR Hillside/Terres Basses), and Villa The Cove (4BR Cupecoy beachfront). AMA Selections markets Casa Cupecoy in Terres Basses (Dutch side). Haute Retreats and Where To Stay carry the broader inventory. The French-side villas operate by Euro and French law; the Dutch-side villas operate by U.S. dollar and Sint Maarten law.
This page covers the six sub-regions, the French-Dutch split mechanics, the Sint Maarten Civil Registry wedding routing, the hurricane-and-named-storm clause language, the SXM Princess Juliana airport access, and the cost band by group size. Specific named-villa rates carry markers where inventory pages route to direct enquiry rather than published nightly rates.