Necker Island (British Virgin Islands)

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Necker Island is a small island in the British Virgin Islands just north of Virgin Gorda, located at 18°31′36″N, 64°21′26″W. It is owned by Sir Richard Branson, famous for his Virgin brand. The island is rented out as a luxury resort for US$46,000 per night.^[1]

1 History
2 Facilities
3 Privacy
4 External links

[edit] History

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The island was named after the 17th century Dutch squadron commander, Johannes de Neckere, although it remained uninhabited until the late 20th century.

Don McCullin and Andrew Alexander ran a survival test on the island in 1968. They were on the island for 14 days and chopped down most of the palm trees on the island for use as shelter.

Sir Richard first became aware that some of the islands in the British Virgin Islands were up for sale in 1979. In 1978 (then) Richard Branson went to the British Virgin Islands for a holiday, have heard that if you wanted to buy an island you would be feted like royalty. He looked at islands saying he would use them to put up rock stars for his record label. Upon arrival, they were greeted like royalty, given a luxury villa and travelled around islands for sale by helicopter. The final island he saw was Necker island, and after climbing the hill and being stunned by the view and wildlife, fell in love with the island. But after making a lowball bid of £200,000 for the £3 million island his bags were packed and he was evicted from the villa. A while later the owner Lord Cobham in need of short term cash eventually settled for £180,000, but there were snags. The Government imposed a relatively common restriction on alien landholders; that the new owner had to develop a resort within 5 years or the island would revert to the state. So Branson committed, determined to build a resort on his tropical dream isle, notwithstanding his realtively modest capital at that time in his career.

When Branson bought the 74 acre island it was a forlorn little rock, albeit in a pretty spectacular part of the world. It took 3 years and approximately US$10 million to turn it into a world class private island retreat. Using local stone, Brazilian hardwoods, antiques, art pieces and fabrics and bamboo furniture from Bali the Architects and designers created a 10 bedroom Balinese-style villa crowning a hill above the beach. Each of the 10 bedrooms has open walls giving a 360-degree view and cooling winds from any direction in the house. The island has accommodation for 24 people and rents out at a reported US$46,000 a day. All that includes two "private" beaches, private pools, tennis courts, breathtaking views, a personal chef and a wide array of water sports equipment.

Numerous famous figures have stayed at the resort, including the late Princess Diana, Janet Jackson, Harrison Ford, Steve Charles, Eddie Murphy and Oprah Winfrey.

[edit] Facilities

The island is available for weddings, relaxation breaks, sports vacations and even complete rentals for any purpose. It is served by daily connecting flights from Puerto Rico, Antigua and Barbados, in addition to chartered helicopter flights from Puerto Rico, Tortola and St. Thomas.

[edit] Privacy

Although the island is entirely privately owned, under British Virgin Islands law, all beaches up to the high water mark are technically crown land, and are open to the members of the public. In practice, the security personnel which accompany guests to Necker Island are reported as making it difficult for ordinary members of public to enjoy the beaches.

When purchasing the island, environmentalists expressed concerns that Necker Island was one of the relatively few places in the world that a rare species of gecko lives and breeds. When Branson was granted an alien land-holder's licence to enable him to purchase the island, it was made conditional upon Branson agreeing that any legitimate scientific expedition to study the geckos should have full and unfettered access to the island.