What’s in a name? Everything, in the case of Paradise Island in the Bahamas, first developed in 1939 by Swedish entrepreneur Axel Wenner-Gren, the founder of Electrolux vacuum cleaners, who in the 1930s was one of the richest men in the world.
Money goes to money. In 1960, this five-mile-long by one-mile-wide island, which lays claim to one of the most beautiful stretches of beach in the Bahamas, was bought by the immensely wealthy Huntington Hartford II – man about town, bon viveur and heir to the A&P supermarket fortune – who opened it two years later as the resort to end all resorts. Terraced gardens and fountains were introduced; 12th-century cloisters from a French Augustinian monastery, which had originally been brought over by William Randolph Hearst and stored in a Florida warehouse for close on 40 years, were acquired and installed; and famous guests came in droves for the opening party.
Zsa Zsa Gabor, Elvis Presley and The Beatles made reservations soon after. Ian Fleming checked in to write the odd 007 chapter and even Sir Winston Churchill – nearly at the end of his life –came to stay and paint a watercolor or two. Boy, did they all come. And still do, only The Ocean Club, A Four Seasons Resort, Bahamas, you should know, is very, but very discreet nowadays – just as it should be – about its high-profile guests.
The other thing you should know is this: Don’t overpack. Because chic these days means simple. You’ll only need a carry-on. Besides, who wants to to be faffing around waiting for bags at Nassau’s airport, or at Kennedy Airport on the return? Checklist – Louisa Ballou swimsuit or Vilebrequin bathing trunks; shirt or cover-up for lunch; white shift dress or chinos for the evening; and a pair of imitation Tod’s – the real thing if you must. Maybe a bangle or two. There, sorted.
The 7:10 a.m. JetBlue flight from JFK, admittedly not a chic hour of the day in other circumstances, does, however, get you in to Nassau by 10 a.m. There you’ll slide into the hotel’s 5-Series BMW for the 30-minute drive to Paradise Island, air-conditioning purring as you wind through Old Nassau with its pretty pastel colors, palm trees gently swaying. At the hotel, Clarice, the always-calm hotel manager, will welcome you like an old friend. Check-in will take a minute; unpacking, in your suite, a minute more. At midday you will be sitting down to shrimp anticucho with spiced lime and jerk marinated mahi mahi at the Ocean Blu restaurant beside the Ocean pool, overlooking the sparkling Caribbean Sea. “Another frozen piña colada?” Mannix, the utterly charming Bahamian waiter will ask. “Twist my arm,” you’ll reply.
I’m always searching for new definitions of luxury, a concept whose coinage has become so debased. What’s real luxury? Space to move freely; lack of pretentiousness, or the need for it; night-air scented with exotic flora; the freedom to do everything – or absolutely nothing. For sure, the Ocean Club is laden with activities – tennis, yoga, paddleboarding, biking, jogging and loads more besides, if they’re your thing. Deep sea fishing or golf at the Weiskopf-designed Ocean Club Golf Course? Go for it. Or don’t.
Luxury, at least for me, is a sense of plenitude, a whiff of profligacy. It’s a sense of someone knowing what I want before I know I want it myself, which you could almost say was the Ocean Club’s specialty, were it not special at so many other things besides. The ice-bucket laden with, not just a couple, but four cartons of water, for instance, which were brought to the low table beside my chaise longue as I flopped down on the beach. (I’m an unashamed beach flopper, just as I am an ice-o-phile – a man who unashamedly puts ice into the most highly-prized Chardonnay.) And it’s a sense of generosity and kindness, as much as of lawns seemingly manicured with a nail scissors, or borders of tropical plants in brilliant, flaming hues, mostly primped but occasionally left alone to run glorious riot.
“Luxury” was also the spa receptionist who said to me, “I’m so sorry, I see we’re completely booked for massages tomorrow, but leave it with me and somehow I’m going to fit you in, I am going to make it happen,” – a line which could have come straight out of “White Lotus,” but was no less sincere for that.
And as for the delightful subject of children, bring them right along. The resort offers complimentary access to its “Kids for all Seasons Club.” Park them there on arrival and pick them up again just before you leave. No, seriously, you love your kids but still, it’s a great amenity.
Then there’s the food – a casual Latin American-inspired lunch or candlelit supper perhaps at Ocean Blu, or a sophisticated dinner at Dune, the Ocean Club’s restaurant helmed by Waccabuc’s Jean-Georges Vongerichten. And drinks at the Martini Bar in the Great House, where it would have occasioned absolutely no surprise if a real-life Mr. Bond had strolled up to the bar and ordered a Vesper martini.
Accommodations run the gamut at the Ocean Club, from garden-view rooms to three-bedroom beachfront villa residences, with private infinity pools, fully-equipped kitchens (they’ll provide the chef if you don’t bring your own) and direct beach access. My own oceanfront room was a very large and tranquil space, with walls of pastel blue; two sitting areas; and a dining table big enough to host a platoon. Well, a small one.
I appreciated the full range of liquor in half-size bottles complete with top-of-the-line Fever-Tree mixers and a silver cocktail shaker to mix them in. And shallow creature that I am, my heart almost skipped a beat on seeing those exquisite Zwiesel glasses and Champagne flutes and that state-of-the-art Lancer coffee maker in the sexiest shade of midnight blue, even though I rarely drink coffee.
In the bathroom, there were mosaics so beautiful they would have had the ancient Roman mosaicists watching their backs and a marble soaking tub to keep an emperor busy soaking all day.
Yet none of this seemed out of place or overtly lavish, and perhaps that is another way of expressing luxury. Just sympathetic colors, matchless comfort and something I can only call Four Seasons breeding and good taste.
As I contemplated the beach of blinding white sand and the sea from my balcony, with its daybed the size of a pickleball court, even the crisscrossing of jet skis in the distance was somehow soothing on the spirit. I usually loathe jet skis, chiefly because I think they must scare the fish, but here they seemed almost to paint the seascape with soft, circular brushstrokes, the patterns of their wakes. A gently chugging fisherman‘s boat or sailboat here, a sleek cigar boat there, with a cruise ship far off on the horizon. A beautiful, barely moving tableau on a limpid, turquoise sea.
“Easy to get to but hard to leave,” runs the Ocean Club brochure’s blurb. And it’s true. All too soon, Devericco the bellman is coming to your room to take your bag to the waiting car. Goodbye Paradise, we’ll miss you, at least… at least until next year.
Jeremy Wayne is a travel adviser with Superior Travel of New York. Contact him directly with your travel questions and needs at jeremy@superiortravel.com.
