The villa also offers other verandas at the second floor and a minor rooftop and chimneys for the kitchen.

But if villas like Tiamo offer all the comforts of the first world, the rawness of Jamaica is - thankfully - never far away.

If you have enough friends or family members in your group, a villa offers a wonderfully intimate - and economical - alternative to a hotel.

A weather-battered villa on the raging river in Dartmouth offered gloomy refuge to an industrialist accused of murdering his mistress in "Betrayal."

The villa offers communal family holidays without childcare, but children have two pools, a soft indoor playroom, trampoline, and of course, each other.

The three villas offer more to interest nonskiers.

An art-deco villa in Cap Martin, the Cote d'Azur offers this elevated swimming pool, overlooking the sea.

Nadal declined the man's request, but the call made him realize that while the remote villa offered him security, it also isolated him as a target.

But the villas offer a good location, efficiency and privacy, as well as a reasonable price.

Hidden behind a heavy, ornately carved wooden door in a pair of early-20th-century houses, the villa offers exquisite accommodation and impeccable service in beautiful, tranquil surroundings.