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FOR PEOPLE WHO GO FURTHER
SW I MM IN G W I T H GI AN TS H OW TH E COAST OF MEXICO BECA M E ON E OF TH E WO R L D’S TO P D I V I N G S P OTS SPRING/2016 1927_01_Cover_Generic.indd 1
T H E 1 ,0 0 0 M PH B LOODHO U N D CAR + L A’S MO DERN GATSBY + THE ARTI FI C I A L SUR F R EVOLUT ION
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PA R A D I S E FOUND
More private islands are being sold and developed than ever before. Meet the people who’ve turned Robinson Crusoe fantasies into successful businesses WORDS MIKE MACEACHERAN
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t all started with a chance encounter on a luxury family yacht in the south of France in the mid-1980s. Sonu Shivdasani, taking a break from his final master’s exams at Oxford University, had flown out to enjoy the Monte Carlo Grand Prix with his late sister, the Countess Sella di Monteluce, when she introduced him to Eva Malmström, a successful Swedish model who regularly graced the covers of Vogue and Elle. “Eva had been on a modeling shoot in the Maldives around 1986 or 1987, and she loved it so much she talked me into coming on holiday with her,” recalls Shivdasani, the fiftysomething son of a wealthy Indian banker and accidental hotelier. “My first impressions were mixed: The islands were beautiful, naturally, but I didn’t like what I saw. Hotel standards and the service was awful. I thought, we could do it better ourselves.” Months later, he was smitten on two fronts—married to Malmström and in love with the idea of owning an uninhabited island, a place where he could indulge his Robinson Crusoe fantasies. Cut to today and the Shivdasanis own Soneva Fushi on the deserted island of Kunfunadhoo, an uncompromisingly decadent 138-acre utopia in the Baa Atoll. Taking more than an hour to circumnavigate barefoot—a marathon compared to most other Maldivian island strolls—it’s where they make their home and entertain fellow millionaires like Sir Richard Branson and Madonna. The appeal is as clear as the crystalline water itself. Many islands are impossible-to-reach places that exist only for an elite stratum of society with the right connections. The majority of the 1,190 in the Maldivian archipelago yet to be properly explored, for instance. Amid these, a new cluster has been found by the Shivdasanis in the Noonu Atoll, consisting of one main sail-shaped island, a
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“The islands were beautiful, but I thought: we can do it better” Sonu Shivdasani, owner, Soneva Fushi
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SAVING PRIVATE ISLANDS Celebrities and their hideaways
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Leonardo DiCaprio
John Lennon
Blackadore Caye, $1.6m
Dorinish Island, $41,550
Oscar-winner Leonardo DiCaprio has 65-plus projects on the go worldwide, saving tigers, elephants, and whales. The Revenant star bought this 104-acre, uninhabited island off the Belize coast in 2005 and plans to resuscitate its entire ecosystem before opening it as a solar-powered, zero-waste eco-retreat in 2018.
Nicknamed Beatles island, this skerry in Clew Bay off Ireland’s west coast became synonymous with John Lennon’s crusade to give peace a chance: At his invitation, a hippy commune was set up on the island. Following his death, Yoko Ono sold the island to a private investor, donating the proceeds to an Irish orphanage.
Johnny Depp
Steven Spielberg
Little Hall’s Pond Cay, $3.5m
Madeira retreat, undisclosed
Nicolas Cage may have coached Johnny Depp in acting, but Marlon Brando taught Depp how to buy an island. The Pirates of the Caribbean star purchased this 45-acre tropical getaway in the Bahamas in 2004, calling it “instant freedom”. It also has a cove named Heath’s Place after Depp’s buddy Heath Ledger.
Perhaps envisioning his own Jurassic Park, director Spielberg plumped for not one but two private volcanic islands off the coast of Madeira, linked together by an Atlantic sandbank, revealed at low tide. The details are shrouded in secrecy, but with Spielberg’s net worth estimated at $3.5 billion, that’s hardly surprising.
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“If you can afford to buy a car, you can afford an island” Farhad Vladi, private island broker One of the sandbanks around Soneva Fushi, the Maldives
Cousine Island, the Seychelles, which was the first island sold by island broker Farhad Vladi in 1971
BUYING YOUR OWN PRIVATE ISLAND? Farhad Vladi is the world’s leading private island broker. He has some advice for would-be Robinson Crusoes: ● “Think about location and budget. If you have your heart set on buying an island, rent one first to experience it and see if you like it. ● “Beware of the difference between freehold and leasehold. Some territories don’t allow foreigners to purchase land. In Asia, for example, only Japan allows foreigners to buy, anywhere else only allows the lease of land. The price of the island should reflect that. A leasehold may also prove problematic when you come to sell. ● “Decide if you want an infrastructure in place—a property with a manager and staff—which in the long run will cost more money to maintain. Or if you just want an island for isolation, with nothing on it. Some people own an island with a house in Scotland, or Canada for example, and they just close it up when they’re away and someone on the mainland looks after it. ● “After Johnny Depp bought his island in the Bahamas, I asked him if it was staffed, so that I could lease it out
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when he wasn’t there. He said that he wasn’t touching it except for creating a wharf for his yacht. So he eats and sleeps on the yacht and sails off afterwards. He literally treats it like a desert island. No management. That’s a growing trend.” ● “Avoid man-made islands. I’ve been selling islands for 30 years and whenever man confronts nature, nature has an answer for it. Natural islands are best. The artificial ones can cause all sorts of problems.” vladi-private-islands.de
sheltered ocean lagoon, and five smaller palm-topped coral satellites. Located 50 miles north-east of Soneva Fushi by powerboat or seaplane, the 130-acre plot will be home to a new private island called Soneva Jani, known locally as Medhufaru, set to open this year. “I searched for more than a year by boat to find it,” says Shivdasani, whose lofty ambitions saw him map out the entire archipelago like a seasoned adventurer. “There are lots of private islands to choose from in the Maldives, but the government is strict about giving them away. There is always excessive demand over supply, so considering the number, it’s quite hard to get one.” Anywhere else, Soneva Jani’s creation would be unremarkable: another private island with a delicious arc of coralfringed reef developed by a foreign investor, another windfall for the real estate company that brokered the deal. But this island, to which Shivdasani is still putting the finishing touches, is different. It’s an exaggerated, preposterous proposal of 24 over-water pool villas, plus VIP playthings such as a new luxury observatory. This and more, he says, will make Soneva Jani the global benchmark for private islands for the next 20 years, and the fulfillment of a lifelong dream to create the world’s most exclusive escape. The past few years have seen an upsurge in island stock, but also in the number of private residences changing hands and entry-level trophy homes on the market. A quick
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Number of isla nds p er
ISLANDS MAPPED
0
coun try
53,000 Canada Norway 50,000 Sweden 221,80 0
Finland 1 79,5 84
0 00 s 2, e v i d Mal 04 17,5 7 sia e n o 7,10 Ind es n i pp 00 Phili 3,0 an Jap
0 ,80 221
glance at the map today and you see there is some surprisingly affordable topography, be it Gigalum Island, a Hebridean speck of rural splendor off the north-west coast of Scotland, a snip at $620,000, or the 2.5-acre Blueberry Island in frontier Canada, a more whimsical heart-shaped lakeshore retreat priced at $690,000. Trade is also up, according to Farhad Vladi, the founder of Vladi Private Islands. A world record holder in selling private islands—2,650 sales in the past 40 years at the last count—he has seen demand rocket, calculating that there are now around 12,000 properties in private hands. “If you can afford to buy a car,” he says, “you can afford to buy an island.” That may smack of hyperbole, but the reason for the explosion is clear. Populations are growing exponentially and private spaces are ever rarer. In the last few years, according to the World Health Organization, urban populations have accounted for 54% of the total global figure, up 20% from 35 years ago. By 2030, this will rise to 70%. The private island is the perfect antidote The difficulty in buying and equipping a private island does not end with finding paradise. Because of logistics and problems with setting up infrastructure in remote locations, initial operating costs are benchmarked between $75m and $100m, depending on a range of factors. A significant investment for anyone’s pocketbook.
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No longer is it just a question of how many marble tiles need to be fitted to the over-water infinity pool either. To ensure an environmental legacy in such fragile eco-systems, and to exercise sustainable construction practices, baseline costs are harder than ever to predict. Such efforts appeal to Kirsten Keeley, a South African who grew up on tropical Cousine Island in the Seychelles—coincidentally, the first island sold by Farhad Vladi in 1971. A 62-acre sliver, 1,000 miles off the east coast of Africa, it was bought by her grandfather, and its four colonial French villas now rent out for exclusive use from $27,700 per night. Keeley speaks of a deep connection to the granite-buffed island, describing a Darwinian paradise of butter-sand beaches and woodland thickets. What makes it so distinctive, she says, is its conservation-based management, meaning all revenue is reinvested into its safekeeping. Hence fruit bats feeding on fichus trees, and the undergrowth bustling with scuttling insects, lizards and cocktail-green geckos. “Conservation has always been at the heart of it,” says Keeley, adding that guests are encouraged to participate in everything from planting indigenous nursery trees to assisting resident ecologists monitor endangered Hawksbill and green turtles. “These were the things that attracted my grandfather to Cousine Island in the first place.” Less can indeed be more—as long as all the mod cons come attached. soneva.com, cousineisland.com
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O P E R ATO R BA S E S - F B O 4 5 0 A I R C R A F T - 1 5 0 ,0 0 0 + F L I G H T S A N N UA L LY A N N UA L P R I N T R U N : 1 2 0,0 0 0 Alerion
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