Luxury tour on Mustique

Take Off
Jörgen Wennberg
Tue 31 Mar 2015 03:43
After Bequia we headed over to Mustique. 

  

Mustique has a quite interesting story. Over 50 years ago Lord Glenconner, Colin Tennant, arrived on Mustique and bought the undeveloped island fort just 45,000 pounds. No roads, no jetties and no running water. Lord Glenconner’s initial ambitions were to invest in cotton plantation, however his plans were not successful and he looked for other ways to develop his island. Having given his good friend Princess Margaret a plot in 1960 as a wedding present, there was considerable media interest in Mustique as a destination and in 1960 he formed the Mustique Company to develop a private island hideaway.
 
Colin Tennant


Two architects helped shape the island during its formative years: Arne Hasselqvist, a Swedish engineer and Olive Messel, a British theatre set designer. Their first project was to convert the old cotton warehouse into a small hotel, The Cotton House, and to establish a design concept for the island as a whole. The idea was for the island to be split into plots and sold to shareholders who would invest equally in the island. The Mustique Company limited the number of development plots and shareholders to a 120 plots. This was to preserve the islands’ character and to retain exclusivity and prevent over-development. Plots are bought by an eclectic group of wealthy people, rock stars, designers and artists.

The island is totally privately owned and we, normal deadly people, are allowed to walk around only in the little village nearby Endeavour Bay. If we want to see more of the island you can take a taxi, but the taxi driver is not aloud to let you go on the island. So we took a taxi tour off course! 

Endeavour Bay

  

We first started with the primary school of Mustique hosting 15 pupils up to 10 years of age.

  

The airport with its control tower.

  

For some reason our taxi driver had to let us go at the Cotton House Hotel for some errand. Wow… we are free! This felt really naughty, ha, ha… So we took a walk down to the beach and the bar of Cotton House Hotel.

  

   

Our taxi driver picked us up again and we drove throughout the parts of the island he was aloud to show us. To the left of this lane below he said lived Tommy Hillfinger, or the owners. We couldn’t understand his English very well, but we understood Tommy Hillfinger. Without knowing this in advance it felt like we were visiting Hollywood… quite exciting!


We stopped at the next beach where we could glimpse some houses in the horizon. The house in the picture to the left belongs to Mick Jagger and the house in the picture to the right belongs to Billy Idol. We have no idea how true all this is, but if felt quite exclusive anyway ;-)

  

   

While driving in the taxi I just realised that my parents had been here a few years ago invited by some friends owning a plot here. So I called them and Mum remembered the name of the villa ”Alumbrera”. So we asked our taxi driver and he knew perfectly well where it was. He was not allowed to drive us to the villa but we could see it from the Macaroni Beach. 

The Macaroni Beach

  

Alumbrera Villa viewing over Macaroni Beach.


We continued our tour passing several impressive villas and some other natural statues in bronze.

  

We had a nice tour with our taxi guide Boom-boom. Looking closer at his t-shirt we saw that it was Alumbrera’s logo! So he knew perfectly well the family ;-)

  

Waiting to leave the dinghy dock for the boat. Inez once again taking the picture of me!

  

  

Take Off from the dinghy dock and a colourful sunset!

  

Jörgen inviting the family for a lovely dinner at the Firefly.

  

Although the major part of the island was closed to the public, we still liked the atmosphere of the little village and the beautiful water surrounding it. So we decided to stay for another day. Once again the kids were thrilled when we said we were to go snorkling… and the snorkling was excellent!

  

And we did the same thing going into the village to do some quick shopping before leaving. We locked in the kids for movie time and got some time for ourselves in the village.

The Food Store and the Fish Market

  

The Fruit Market

  

And we passed by the bakery… ok just a little coffe and pastry. 


Walking back to the dinghy dock was like waking through several post cards. The colour of the sea was amazing!

   

   

Some interesting sculptures on the way.

    ’

Before heading back to the kids we stopped at Basil’s Bar with a breathtaking view of the waters and good wifi.

  

  

View of Bequia North of Mustique when we left in the afternoon.