The Bahamas. The words make Miamians forget we linger in legit sunkissed turquoise-ness, for there’s a more utopian utopia starting just 57 miles east of Carbone – a meandering zootopian archipelago swarming with adorable swimming pigs, luminescent conchs, and sharks & stingrays so luxuriously photogenic and friendly, they usually can’t be bothered to murder us.
But there’s an open secret that there are two Bahamas. The “Bahamas” for pale, chubby slots machinists consists of just three islands – Freeport, Nassau and Bimini – where flyovers arrive white by cruise ship but depart sizzled to a crimson crisp, aloe-slathered and cornrowed. But those in the know wouldn’t dare utter the B-word, for with effortless specificity they tout the chain’s tony clusters – The Exumas, The Berry’s, The Abacos, Andros, Eleuthera, Cat, Stocking, Harbour – and the hundreds of little off-grid cays, many of which are privately owned by Lenny Kravitz, Shakira, Johnny Depp, Eddie Murphy, David Copperfield and titans gobbling up ultimate pandemic moats.
These cays – from couple acre specks to dozens of hectares – are tropical kingdoms, where beautiful, skinny and enormously wealthy expatriates and their lucky friends let their hair down, getting elegantly wasted, naked in nature, frollicking beyond the paparazzi, bathing in a billion stars. A life of swimming, boating, napping, wine-ing, Gramming, fishing and exfoliating. But achieving actual civilization is arduous: building a house on a widdle pile of flesh-ripping coral and hurricane-raged sand in the middle of the ocean – without electricity, without fresh water, without sewage, without ready and skilled labor, without anything – is a complicated, years-long, frustrating slog of supply barges and indiscernible progress that most millionaires refuse to endure. And that’s why finished islands with houses, spas, working toilets, satellite internet, servants quarters, dredged boat approaches, gasoline depots, docks and helicopter pads command top, top dollar.
So it comes as no surprise, this $35,000,000 sales price tag attached to L’île d’Anges (aka: Goat Cay), the impossibly chic, luxurious island compound revealed to be ruled by country queen and king Faith Hill & Tim McGraw. We now know why in the coldest and most frozen Tennessee country winters – today at just 17 degrees – why Faith and Tim are perma-tanned, stress-free, glowing with RRF (resting rich face).
Their L’île d’Anges at Goat Cay is no common house on a rock – it’s an island-wide, 20 acre boutique resort-like dreamscape with 1.3 miles of Volvic-clear water, two baby powder beaches, 4 jet skis, 2 boats, 2 yurts, 3 staff houses, multiple storage and engineering facilities, and the showstopping elevated 6,500sf main residence consisting of 8 pods interconnected by 5,000sf of breezeways around a pool flanked by postcard foliage. The cherry on top of this diamond-plated sundae is an observation tower to gleefully gaze into the neverending hues of deliciousness only accessible by seaplane or boat. It is happiness one can buy. It is tranquility. As the Cessna Caravan seaplane delivers you to the beach, you’ll unfasten your sarong then your seatbelt in one sweeping motion. Standing on the pontoon, your bikini will suddenly fall off. You’ll step into heaven, knees buckling in ankle deep water, as God intended. Repent.
L’île d’Anges, 280 miles from Miami, is offered exclusively by Knight Frank. Grab a vomit bag and watch the marketing video.
The Bahamas
Photos by London-based, global real estate firm Knight Frank