Posted by: travadmin on Mar 17, 2004 – 02:09 PM
exoticlocations Just as the weak dollar, cheaper flights and affordable property open up house-buying in the Caribbean to the middle market, a very private resort is to offer the super-rich a new playground.
A resort on Abaco, one of the Bahamas’ sparsely populated and lesser-known islands, is being created by Peter de Savary, the developer of Skibo Castle in Scotland.
Homes on the 550-acre site at the remote Winding Bay peninsula won’t be cheap. For example, 70 West Indian-style wooden cottages are to be priced at an eye-popping $1.5 million to $2 million (£800,000 to £1.1 million). Alternatively, 60 building plots, each between one and two acres, are valued at $1.5 million to $3 million (£1.67 million), with building costs predicted to be $1.5 million. And, before buyers put away their cheque book, there will be an annual service charge of $9,000 (£5,000), whichever home they decide to choose. However, as with all de Savary schemes, before you can buy a property, you have to join the club – and membership of the club is decided by the man himself. He anticipates 420 members each paying a one-off deposit of $50,000 (£27,800), with a further $4,000 (£2,200) annual subscription. This entitles them to use the resort’s facilities – links golf course, deep-sea fishing, scuba diving, a tropical spa and two miles of beaches.
Yet, even if you have the money, you may not fit the desired social profile of the club. “You’ve got to show camaraderie, be public-spirited and have a good sense of humour,” explains Henry Robinson, the sales director at the Abaco Club. “And you’ve got to give us three references, which we always take up.
“We don’t want someone brash – the sort who wants to have dinner in a tuxedo, drives a Ferrari and has a wife insisting on strapless evening wear,” suggests Robinson. The strikingly undemocratic vetting process involves an interview with a panel, consisting of Robinson, Mark Scott, the resort director, and Peter de Savary.
For those who choose to build their own properties, de Savary has issued strict guidelines to preserve low-density developments and – you’ve guessed it – all plans must be approved by a club committee. Owners can keep the properties exclusively for personal use or allow de Savary’s team to rent them out.
“This is a winning formula. It respects the people we want to attract and respects the local people,” says de Savary, who is spending $140 million (£78 million) on Abaco. “The rules prevent anyone going berserk with their ambitions and marring the landscape. If an American wanted to build a vast Florida-type home on a plot, we’d say no and expect him to stop.”
Eager to attract tourism, the government has given the go-ahead to large-scale holiday resorts on the little-known islands of Exuma and Paradise, and now de Savary’s Abaco Club has won official endorsement from none other than the Bahamian prime minister.
De Savary, who is 60 this year, is now turning his attention to the April reopening of Bovey Castle, on the Dartmoor National Park, as a members’ hotel. Next stop after Devon will be Croatia, where de Savary wants to create a resort on the Dalmatian coast. “I want to keep selling homes to people who appreciate what I’m doing,” he tells me. “I could stop, but there’s a market out there.”
The Abaco Club is being marketed in Britain by Knight Frank on 020 7629 8171. The first properties will be ready in the autumn.
Note: Telegraph Group Limited