How To Buy Your Own Island

A highly accomplished figure in the corporate world, Jim Johnston has always been driven to perform and deliver. Yet like many hard-working professionals, he rarely had time to look beyond the horizon and consider alternative life choices. Fortunately, his wife, Tracey, was on hand to do the looking for them. And what she came up with was an incredible and transcendent idea: “We would buy our own private island.” Not surprisingly, Tracey decided to keep her vision vague at first. “I simply suggested to my husband that he should consider leaving the corporate sector and that we do something for ourselves,” she explains. “At the time I think he agreed with me just for the sake of being nice. Two months later, I told him we should look at buying an island in the Pacific. His response was, ‘Are you completely nuts?!’” Little Pipe Cay Exuma, Bahamas On the surface, Jim Johnston’s reaction seems understandable. Buying an island sounds about as exotic—and costly—as taking a trip into space. But as Edward de Mallet Morgan , a private-island expert and partner in Knight Frank’s Global Super Prime Residential division , notes: For the price of a townhouse in London, you can find yourself surrounded by your own private 360-degree circle of shoreline. “A private island is a haven for you and your family to live exactly as you want,” says de Mallet Morgan. “In a world where confidentiality and privacy are at a premium, this is the ultimate opportunity to spend quality, safe time with your family and to be the king or queen of your own domain.” For today’s potential kings or queens, a few questions immediately come to mind: Where do you buy, what will it cost, and what unique challenges are involved? “The Caribbean is a great option because of the climate and generally because there are a wider variety of islands,” says de Mallet Morgan. “But there are comparable opportunities in areas off Australia, in Fiji, and in French Polynesia, or even with islands in the Mediterranean.” He is quick to add that not all private islands are in the tropics, with some available off the United Kingdom that are kept for hunting, wildlife observation, or farming, while those off the Maine coast are a sailor’s paradise. The main house on Little Pipe Cay. The cost of your own island can vary widely; de Mallet Morgan notes that he’s sold some for a few million dollars and others well in excess of $100 million. Rick Kermode, senior property broker for Knight Frank New Zealand, currently represents islands in the South Pacific ranging from $3 million for 3,000 acres to $26 million for a 10,000-acre island covered with an incredible 15.5 miles of coastline. A dock makes a sublime setting for a massage on Little Pipe Cay. Whatever end of the spectrum you choose, it’s critical to know exactly what you are—and are not—willing to undertake. “If you want value, buy a raw, undeveloped island with little or no infrastructure, where you can curate and create your own dream paradise,” advises de Mallet Morgan. “You will pay less, but you will spend more to set things up.” This could include a pier for mooring, solar power, water desalinization, and environmental surveys, as well as the structure you’ll call home. “With larger islands, it can take a decade to create your own paradise,” he adds. “This is why the highest prices come with islands that have been painstakingly added to and are basically turnkey.” Nananu-i-cake Island, Fiji Island For Australian Tracey Johnston, the raw, time-consuming route led to paradise. Focusing on Fiji because, she says, “the people are perhaps the friendliest on the planet,” she fell in love with a property on one of the country’s northern islands, but the manager of the area’s tourism sector told her to reconsider. Since her goal was to create a paradise not only for her family but also for world travelers seeking a private-island resort experience, he stressed location. “His advice turned out to be invaluable because I needed a place that was more than just idyllic,” she says. “I needed one that could be reached easily by boat or helicopter, and had regular barge service to deliver fuel and tradespeople.” A table beckons guests to enjoy a leisurely alfresco lunch on Wadigi The answer was Wadigi, a three-acre volcanic Fijian island with a pristine beach. From the moment she saw it, Johnston knew she had found her Eden. “The island already had a private residence, but it had the potential to be developed into something unique. So we bought it, and a new, exciting chapter in our life started!” What also started were the improvements—not surprisingly, they didn’t always go according to plan. “I blew the budget apart!” she says with a laugh. Today, 16 years later, the island is a dream home for the Johnstons, but it’s also an ultra-private resort (wadigi.com) that caters to one party at a time. Here, one finds a guest villa with three-bedroom suites, a lounge, an infinity pool, a romantic dining spot—and a cadre of A-list celebrities who pop in for a private-island experience. Of course, none of those guests know how hard the Johnstons worked to achieve their new life. “I brought in an environmental sewage treatment plant, installed a desalination plant and two water-storage tanks that hold 800,000 liters of rainwater, built a helicopter landing pad, and added a purification system,” Johnston says. “And we run three generators in rotation to have a fully self-sufficient island paradise.” On the other end of the island-buying spectrum is Tynan, a life coach and cruise industry agent who prefers not to use his last name. “As long as I’ve remembered, I’ve wanted to buy a private island,” he says. But a multimillion-dollar purchase was not in the cards. Undeterred, he bought a five-acre island near Halifax, Nova Scotia, with nine like-minded friends. “It’s drivable from Boston and less than an hour from the Halifax airport, and the under-$100,000 price tag was affordable when split 10 ways,” he says, estimating that they’ve put in about $25,000 more for improvements. “We built a yurt, a cabin, an outhouse, a dock, and a lot of trails. Now it’s a fun place to get away to about four times a year for camping and exploring, but I hope that one day our little island becomes a private summer camp for our families.” Like the Johnstons, Tynan’s private-island adventure has come with surprises. “We’ve had a number of funny disasters, like sinking a boat and getting stranded on the island. But the biggest surprise was how well everything has worked out. We all love the island even more than we thought we would.” —by Cameron Swain 1 Petre Island Carmel, New York EXPERT ADVICE FOR BUYERS: KEY QUESTIONS AND CAVEATS As an island expert for Knight Frank, Edward de Mallet Morgan has seen all types of islands and dealt with every type of potential buyer. “I’ve been with clients who were worried about how safe it was to swim in the ocean,” he says, “so I jumped in the water with the nurse sharks to show that they wouldn’t eat me!” Who better to help you navigate the waters of private-island buying? Here are de Mallet Morgan’s dos and don’ts for buying your own island. Find out about the ownership. Sometimes it’s difficult to show the provenance of title. Check public access to the beaches, potential planning restrictions, and whether there is any obligation to maintain the local environment. Can you land a seaplane? Can you land a jet? Would you get permission to put a runway in if the island is large enough? What territory governs the island? Find out about historic storms and what the high water marks are. Build your properties above them. If you’re in a region prone to tropical storms, make sure the property is built to hurricane code. Make sure the materials you use will survive in a sea climate. If you sail, is the depth of the water and the draft deep enough for your boat? If you’re keen on fishing, make sure you’re not buying in the middle of a marine preserve. Otherwise there may be restrictions on what you can catch. Do surveys of the land, accounting for where the best beaches are for swimming (checking currents) and to make sure docks are built on the sheltered part of the island with suitably deep channels for boats. Ensure that emergency provisions and procedures are in place. Make sure the person responsible for running and managing the island is experienced and capable of recruiting and overseeing staff members. Find out where your supplies will come from, how long they will take to get to you, and the costs and frequency of transport. Learn the location of the nearest medical facilities or hospital. Ease of access is also a big consideration. How quickly can you arrive at the island or leave if you need to get away? Find your next island today.