Luxury has become predictable. Gold, marble, 1,000-thread count sheets. We have been taught to look for it in particular places. But some of the most luxurious experiences never look the part.

This bar shouldn’t exist.

A mile off the coast of Treasure Beach in Jamaica, a small driftwood bar stands on stilts in the middle of the Caribbean Sea.

The first time I went there, years ago for a photo shoot, the boat slowed before we arrived, and this structure seemed to rise out of the horizon. Driftwood. Weathered surfaces. Nothing polished or extravagant. No fancy amenities, and beyond it, only the vastness of sea and sky.

It is, by almost every conventional measure, the antithesis of luxury.

And yet, sitting on its balcony, my feet treading in the clearest water, feeling smaller by the moment, I felt something I have spent years of my working life trying to create for others.

The structure is humble. It doesn’t compete with the ocean. It surrenders to it. The sea remains the spectacle. The breeze, the salty air, and the light glistening on the waves guide the moment as if the bar, like me, understood its place within something larger.

That feeling has a name.

Psychologists call it awe — the emotion we experience when we encounter something so vast or unexpected that our minds don’t have a ready reference for it. This is what separates grandness from ordinary beauty. It moves beyond simply pleasing us. It changes us.

A study by Paul Piff has shown that awe drawn from nature moves us more than awe from anything man-made, which ultimately makes us more open to each other.

This does not surprise me. It is a feeling I’ve experienced time and again. I felt it that day on a rustic, wooden deck in the middle of the sea off the coast of Jamaica.

Still, we often regard beauty as optional — pleasant but unnecessary. Yet, when life becomes burdensome, where do we go? To the sea, to the shade of old, towering trees. For walks to inhale the crisp morning air and to climb hills to watch the sun rise. We send flowers to our loved ones in times of sickness and grief. We gather in beautiful places to celebrate the happiest moments of our lives. And, in the ordinary moments, we take off our shoes to simply feel the earth beneath our feet.

Instinctively, we already know what science is beginning to explain: Beauty restores us.

Perhaps, that has always been the real point of luxury.

Treasure Beach, Jamaica (Photo: Dwayne Watkins Photography, Indulge Magazine)

Aiesha Panton.