The finest Bermuda rum was poured onto the roof of a new villa at Ariel Sands to mark the approaching completion of an 18-month project to build six luxury private spa villas overlooking the ocean and expected to sell for a cool $3.5 million each.

The traditional roof wetting was performed by Bitten Dill on behalf of property owners Ariel Sands.

Watching were four architects who designed the villas that are built on a hill and incorporate a mixture of Bermudian architectural designs into their structure.

The multi-floored homes each have a spa as well as indoor and outdoor showers.

When completed later this summer all the homes will have a private path leading down to the Ariel Sands beach.

As an added bonus for the owners they will be able to book in-house spa treatments and service from the adjacent Ariel Sands resort.

Alex DeCouto, project manager with construction firm BCM McAlpine, said one of the trickiest aspects in building the 3,000 square foot homes was incorporating the multitude of architectural styles into the roofs, as well as having an interior floor plan that is on a variety of distinct, inter-linked levels.

Vesna Karlovic Terceira, one of the architects from the Terceira Quarterly team, said there had been an effort to link the spa theme of the nearby resort with the villas, as well as the challenge of ensuring each home had good views of the ocean.

She said that when the gardens are finished they will reference characters from Shakespeare's Tempest play ? which some believe was inspired by contemporaneous reports of the storms that shipwrecked Bermuda's earliest settlers.