They hired Miami architect Rafael Amuchastegui, a principal of RAD Architecture, who admits he knew little about Messel going into the project but had done "a lot of theme architecture, " like the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas.
The researchers suggest that while the upper layers of Messel Lake were hospitable enough to allow turtles to live, its deeper layers may have been a toxic death trap, perhaps from the buildup of volcanic gases or poisonous decaying organic matter.
As the Turks and Caicos doesn't have its own design vernacular, the Palms' developers borrowed from Barbados, and particularly the homes that the British architect and theatrical designer Oliver Messel built there in the 1960s and '70s--one of the partners had grown up in Barbados and lived in a Messel house.