Tropical dreams...St. Bartīs
We know you are crazy about the Caribbean -every
month our mailbox is filled with letters seeking
advice.
Here , you will find a report about Harbour Island.
Harbour Island the next St. Bart's, though you won't
hear that from the island's residents. Brilanders are
eager to tell you that it isn't an easy place to
reach. You must fly to Florida or Nassau, change
planes and fly to North Eleuthera, where you catch a
taxi, then a speedboat, and then another taxi before
getting to your room on an island that has no golf
courses, no gambling, little shopping, electricity
that switches off for hours at a time, and so few
good hotels and restaurants you can count them on
your fingers—leaving a few fingers free to pilot
those golf carts, the preferred method of transport.
This balance, brought into being by the island's
unique history, is tenuous at best. Inevitably,
newcomers become atavistic, wishing the door could be
locked behind them, worrying about each enhancement.
"Every time you get something, you lose
something," says one boldfaced Brilander, who
demanded anonymity in order to avoid hastening the
very process that attracted him to the place. Already
he sees signs of decline, most notably inappropriate
"improvements" unsuited to the island's
essential identity. And he's not alone.
Co-owner and figurehead of the chic Landing hotel,
India Hicks attracts attention because she's a
daughter of the decorator David Hicks and
granddaughter of the late Lord Mountbatten of Burma,
who was Queen Victoria's great-grandson. A bridesmaid
to Diana, Princess of Wales, a former fashion model,
and a distant heir to the British throne, Hicks
tripped alarms not long ago when she issued an
ominous prediction to London's society glossy Tatler:
"As soon as Harbour Island becomes St. Bart's,
we'll move on."
Many Sip-Sippers wondered aloud how she could say
that when the recent increase of attention paid to
the island has been in large part her doing.
Appropriately enough, Harbour Island's earliest
visitors were also aristo-Brits. In the 17th century,
the first white settlers arrived from Nassau. In the
next century, British loyalistsfrom America followed,
escaping the Revolution;the fourth earl of Dunmore
built a summer house and planned Dunmore Town, the
capital of Harbour Island. The town's neat grid of
shady lanes is still lined with the Colonial-era
clapboard houses that inspired someone to dub the
island the Nantucket of the Caribbean (even though
it's in the Atlantic). Updated August 2016
