| Firefly Estate | |
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Statute of Noël Coward in front of Firefly |
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Firefly Estate
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| Location | Port Maria, Jamaica |
| Type | Historic house museum |
Firefly Estate, located 10 km east of Oracabessa, Jamaica was Sir Noël Coward’s vacation home and is listed as a National Heritage Site by the Jamaica National Heritage Trust.[1] Although the setting is Eden-like, the house built in 1956[2] is surprisingly Spartan, considering that he often entertained jet-setters and royalty. The view from the estate, now a government-sponsored museum dedicated to the English author, is magnificent.
Noël Coward’s mountaintop Jamaican home and burial site was originally owned by the infamous pirate and one-time governor of Jamaica, Sir Henry Morgan. The property offered a commanding view of the St. Mary harbour and Morgan had used it over 3 centuries ago as a lookout[3] and dug a secret escape tunnel to Port Maria.
Named for the luminous insects seen in the warm evenings, Firefly estate has entertained a wide range of luminaries from the political and entertainment worlds, including both the Queen Mother and Queen Elizabeth II, Winston Churchill, Sir Laurence Olivier, Sophia Loren, Elizabeth Taylor, Alec Guiness, Peter O’Toole, Richard Burton, and neighbours Errol Flynn, Ruth Bryan Owen and Ian Fleming.[4]
"An Englishman has an inalienable right to live wherever he chooses", said Winston Churchill, who taught Coward oil painting in his art studio at Firefly.[5] The studio holds Coward's paintings and photographs of his coterie of famous friends, including Laurence Olivier, Errol Flynn and Marlene Dietrich.
Of his time at his beloved Firefly estate, Coward wrote in his diary: "Firefly has given me the most valuable benison of all: time to read and write and think and get my mind in order." "I love this place, it deeply enchants me. Whatever happens to this silly world, nothing much is likely to happen here." Writing, he believed, came easier when he was here, "the sentences seemed to construct themselves, the right adjectives appeared discretely at the right moment. Firefly has magic for me. . . .".[6]
Coward died at Firefly on March 26, 1973, at 74 of a heart attack. He is buried in a marble tomb embraced by a gazebo-like wrought iron frame in his garden on the spot he would sit each night watching the sun set as he sipped his brandy with ginger ale chaser and looked out to sea and along miles and miles of lush green coast spread out beneath him.[7] A statue of him gazing out over the blue harbour graces the lawn. The stone hut on the lawn that was once a lookout for Henry Morgan, then converted to a bar by Sir Noël, is now a gift shop and restaurant.
On one of Firefly’s walls is written his last poem. It begins: When I have fears, as Keats had fears, Of the moment I'll cease to be, I console myself with vanished years, Remembered laughter, remembered tears, And the peace of the changing sea.[2]