RICH MEN'S RETREAT

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28938, 4 July 1959, Page 10

RICH MEN'S RETREAT

Prices Rise In Caribbean ,

[From ALAN ARNOLD in Ntw York] TYOLIAB-HAPPY American millionaires are creating a boom in Caribbean tropical island paradises. The trend was spotlighted last week by news that Hog Island, in the Bahamas, is to become a glittering, multi-million dollar “cultural playground” financed by immensely rich Huntington Hartford, the Atlantic and Pacific Company supermarket tycoon. There is news, too, that real estate on the Isle Of Pines is going to bidders at the astonishing starting price of 25,000 dollars per 100 ft. Huntington Hartford is buying four-fifths of four-mile long Hog Island to develop it as “a vacation' resort for artists, writers, scientists, diplomats and socialites.” “We will expect people of quality from all walks of life,” says Hartford. “There will be no automobiles, no roulette wheels, no honkytonks on Hog Island. We will create an atmosphere of cultural enjoyment.” He is buying this coral isle, with its groves of palm trees and 25,000 feet of pink-white beaches, from the Swedish industrial Axel Wenner-Gren, who also owns 100,000 acres of neighbouring Andros Island. Hartford’s plans for Hog Island, which is only 300 yards across the bay from the Bahamas capital, Nassau, include a hotel, tennis court, seaside cabanas along Paradise Beach, a golf course, yacht dockage and a 2200-seat auditorium divided info separate theatres for dramatic, musical and sporting events. The Caribbean project is In keeping with other schemes of artistic patronage undertaken by Huntingdon Hartford.

He recently announced his intention to build a gallery of modern art on Columbus avenue in New York, which will compete with the rich but controversial Museum of Modern Art already in existence here. Hartford also made unsuccessful attempts to save from demolition the historic St. James' Theatre in London by offering to buy it. Land Boom According to Hartford, the Hog Island project will respect in every detail "the finest island traditions, architecture and customs.” Hog Island is part of a group of tropical paradises extended 750 miles from Grand Bahama, near southern Florida, to Great Inagua Island, east of Cuba. It is off the southern tip of Cuba that Robert Louis Stevenson found the setting for “Treasure Island” the lush and lovely Cuban Isle of Pines. Once a pirate stronghold, it still has large tracts of undeveloped tropical forest and hills of pure marble. Rich Americans are buying up these tracts. The Isle of t Pine» was once almost wholly owned by Arthur Vining Davis, millionaire head of the Aluminium Corporation of America, who, at 94, still has extensive holdings there. These include the airport -at Neuva Girona, the capital;* tad Bibijagua, a 200.000-acre bench of black sand which comprises- the island’s south coast He bought this roadless and partially unexplored coast region for around 800 dollars a hundred feet. The boom in real estate on this island is caused by retired wealthy Americans seeking retirement spots of reach of northern winters, by American citrus growers who plan to grow fruit for the rich Florida resorts, and by those who come to speculate in real estate.

Negotiations are reported under way for non-stop, 35-dollar roundtrip flights between Florida and the Isle of Pines. The distance is 200 miles and the flight time 75 minutes.

Two years ago the island became a free port. This made it possible to buy a bottle of Scotch whisky for two dollars.—Associated Newspapers Feature Services.