Guana: Secluded, Undisturbed, Undiscovered
A Quaker sugar plantation in the 18th Century, Guana, 9 miles North of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), became a vacation destination in the 1930’s after a Massachusetts couple, Beth and Louis Bigelow, purchased the overgrown isle and constructed a handful of cottages.
They named it the Guana Island Club, attracting their Bostonian friends to the simple life.
“There was no electricity and no hot water,” one guest from the era says, “but we all dressed for dinner.”
Guana’s current owners, Dr. Henry Jarecki, a New York psychiatrist and investor, and his wife, Gloria, bought the island in Y 1975.
Guana may be the last BVI still “Virgin” in any meaningful sense.
Around 90% of the 850-acre island is undeveloped and hilly, shrouded in dense tropical vegetation.
There is one dock and there are no cars.
Aside from the clubhouse, with dining and common areas, and 20 cottages and villas with white exteriors and blue trim tucked discreetly along the ridgeline on the island’s Western edge, overlooking the Caribbean on one side and the Atlantic on the other.
Guests gaze across thickets of white-flowering frangipani, tabebuia trees, and organ-pipe cacti, down toward the azure sea and beyond to Tortola, the most populated of the BVI’s into which most guests fly.
Guana never has more than 35 guests at a time.
The Jareckis were meticulous, inviting biologists to study its ecology: Guana is believed to harbor more varieties of flora and fauna than any island of its size in the Caribbean, and repatriated such species as the rock iguana, red-legged tortoise, and a small flock of roseate flamingos that look like lawn ornaments in a salt pond behind the main beach, White Bay.
Over the years, the family built a few more villas, cut miles of rugged hiking trails, and only reluctanctly installed WiFi, but mainly left the island untamed, it is “a wildlife sanctuary with a cocktail hour,” Dr. Jarecki says.
There is electricity and hot water now, but the Jareckis have maintained the unglitzy, no-frills vibe of Guana’s bygone days.
Rooms are without TVs or telephones, keys, or air-conditioning, cooled instead by pleasant trade winds and ceiling fans.
The rattan and floral-patterned furniture in some cottages appears to date from the Jimmy Carter era, which is apparently how some longtime “Guanaphiles” guests have been returning to Guana for more than a quarter century, would prefer to see things remain.
Both bars, at the clubhouse and beach, use the honor system.
The island operates as a resort, well cared for and pampered.
The time-honored cocktail hour begins at 7:30p on the clubhouse terrace. The dress code is “smart casual”.
Rachel Weisz and Daniel Craig, Walter Cronkite, Mario Batali, Nobel Prize–winning molecular-biologist James Watson: Guana receives its share of notables, whose photos are presumably amidst the stack of yellowing albums in the lounge that chronicle every visitor on the dock before they depart the island.
The scene on Guana is social and egalitarian; it is customary to break bread with others for a meal or two.
The chefs have trained under Chef’s Boulud and Bouley. Two years ago, Xavier Arnau, a young Spaniard with Michelin-Star pedigree, took over the island’s kitchen.
He serves a Mediterranean- and Asian-inspired menu that gestures to the Caribbean: mahi mahi with pineapple salsa, soy-glazed monkfish, jerk chicken. Chef Arnau has grander, farm-to-table ambitions for Guana, using the bounty plucked from its own 3-acre Organic orchard.
The beach is a perfect half-mile parabola of white sand, hemmed by sea grapes and palms and clear teal blue water.
Most guests traveling to Guana Island fly into San Juan, Puerto Rico, and then take a charter flight to Tortola. From there, it’s a 30-min boat ride to Guana.
Cottages from $695
212-482-6247
www.guana.com.
Stay tuned…
HeffX-LTN
Paul Ebeling
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