Plain Sailing: Les Voiles de Saint-Barth Richard Mille

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(Image credit: @christophejouany)

Most picture-book islands are known for their historical ruins. Remains of centuries-old stone cottages have been found on the Isles of Scilly; on Gramvoussa, a weathered sandstone structure is all that remains of a 16th- century church last used by pirates who chose the Cretan islet as a secret base. On the volcanic island of Saint Barthélemy in the French West Indies, the ruins are rather more unconventional: they come in the shape of a deserted Rockefeller compound.

David Rockefeller and his wife Peggy first spotted the clifftop plot of land in the island’s northwest from a sailing boat; shortly after, in the late 1950s, the billionaire banker and third-generation member of the influential American Rockefeller clan purchased it. Commissioning local builders, the Rockefellers erected a modernist villa and a tepee-shaped guesthouse designed by architect Nelson W Aldrich and furnished with Arne Jacobsen chairs, French rugs, and artworks by Alexander Calder. Floor-to-ceiling windows framed expansive views of the Caribbean Sea bordered by the secluded, white-sand Colombier beach below. The mansion was first sold in 1983; uninhabited ever since, the estate is slowly returning to nature, with cotton plants, cacti and tamarind trees growing freely. The year of the sale, American magazine Architectural Digest likened the site’s dramatic structure of sweeping roofs and stone arches to a boat catching wind at high sea: “With the sensitivity of a sailor, the architect oriented the house towards the prevailing winds,” it said.

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