Despite the weak economy, the number of millionaires in the U.S. and their combined net worth hit record highs in 2010, with investible assets up more than 8.4% from 2009, according to the World Wealth Report by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini. Several record-breaking real-estate sales this year have buoyed optimism in the ultra-high end of the market, including the $85 million sale of a Los Angeles estate owned by Candy Spelling earlier this month. In March, a Russian buyer paid $100 million for a home in Silicon Valley, the highest price ever paid for a single-family home.
The Frys Electronics brothers are building a private island resort:
Island development projects can take years—at least one under way now involves 150 workers. Locals say one of the biggest private resort projects under construction in the Exumas is a compound whose principal investors are the co-founders of California-based retailer Fry’s Electronics, brothers John, Randy and David Fry and Kathy Kolder. On a group of eight islands known as Bock Cay, the project calls for a staff village with about 35 homes for employees, a main clubhouse and six guest estates built in various styles, including an Italian villa. Fifteen hundred palm trees have been imported. One unusual private-island feature in the works: an 18-hole Nick Faldo-designed golf course with at least one drive that goes over the ocean to reach a hole on a nearby island that’s also part of the property.
A spokesman for Fry’s says an opening date hasn’t yet been set, and that the island will likely be available as a very high-end rental in the model of Sir Richard Branson’s Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands. (Weekly rates at Mr. Branson’s island start at $54,500 per night for up to 28 guests.)
The Exuma Cays (pronounced “Keys” by most locals and regulars) have many of the ingredients for a destination for the extremely wealthy: sandy beaches, turquoise water and limited development possibilities—90% of the islands are either uninhabitable or protected as part of a 176-square-mile marine park. The growing ease of staying connected with cable and the Internet, as well as improved desalination and diesel-generator technology, have also made the islands more attractive, says Tom Lawson, a resident who has developed, owned or managed several private-island properties there.
The relatively large number of islands makes the Exumas generally more affordable than other exclusive destinations like the Seychelles, says Farhad Vladi, the Germany-based founder of Vladi Private Islands, a private-island real-estate company. Although prices for islands in the Exumas have doubled in the last decade, the Seychelles cost even more because of their scarcity and extreme privacy, with most basic islands selling for around $30 million.
Sounds awesome. Will probably look something like Turneffe Island, pictured below:
Making my eternal longing for one of these damn things especially painful is that now is the best time to buy but I still haven’t made my first million yet. FRUSTRATING (I blame Wall Street/Bush/Capitalism/anythingexceptmyself).
One of the least expensive on the market now is Nicolas Cage’s former island, Leaf Cay, which remains completely undeveloped and is available for $8.5 million. At the top end of the market is Cave Cay, a 250-acre island priced at $110 million that has its own harbor and runway. Listing broker John Christie, of H.G. Christie, says there are several buildings on the property, some of which are not yet completed. He says it has been on the market for about a year and the sellers are open to offers for less than the listing price.
“It’s definitely a buyer’s market right now,” says Kevin Cross, a Nassau-based real-estate broker. But he and others say buyers are emerging. “We’re getting real buyers looking in the $30 million to $50 million price range,” says Mr. Christie.
Movie stars, royalty and old-money families have yachted around the Exumas and vacationed on the main island, Great Exuma, since at least the 1950s. On the market right now is Children’s Bay Cay, the $37.5 million former vacation playground of Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn, who vacationed on the island in their movie-making heydays in the 1950s and ’60s. It’s been owned by heirs to the Johnson & Johnson family fortune. They couldn’t be reached for comment.