Celebrity Travel
Saint-Barthélemy Is the Caribbean Rock the Rockefellers Turned Into Old Money's Winter Address
A poor, largely overlooked French Caribbean outpost until the mid-twentieth century, Saint-Barthélemy owes its transformation into one of the world's most exclusive winter addresses to Rémy de Haenen's Eden Rock hotel and the Rockefeller and Rothschild families, who began buying land there from the late 1950s.
Sep 25, 2026 · BigTravel.in
Saint-Barthélemy spent most of its history as one of the poorer islands of the French Caribbean: rocky, dry, short on the plantation land that built fortunes elsewhere in the region. Its shift into one of the most expensive small islands on earth traces to a specific run of postwar decades, and to a small number of people who arrived, bought land, and stayed.
Eden Rock and the island's first arrivals
Rémy de Haenen, a French aviator and adventurer who later served as the island's mayor, built the Eden Rock hotel on a rocky outcrop above a beach in the 1950s, drawing early visitors that included film-era names such as Greta Garbo and Robert Mitchum. It was among the first signals that the island could attract more than passing yacht traffic.
The Rockefellers buy in
David Rockefeller, the American banker and scion of the Rockefeller family, bought roughly 140 acres on Colombier beach in 1957 and built a five-bedroom villa there, a purchase widely credited with starting the island's long run of wealthy private buyers.
The Rothschilds follow
Later in the 1960s, the Rothschild banking family acquired waterfront land in Marigot Bay, building an estate on the strength of the same appeal that had drawn the Rockefellers a decade earlier: privacy, a small resident population, and a coastline with almost no large-scale development.
A small island that stayed small
Unlike other Caribbean islands that industrialised their tourism, Saint-Barthélemy has kept height and density restrictions that limit hotel scale, and its main airport, Gustaf III, has a short runway that keeps out larger aircraft; most visitors arrive via a connecting flight from Sint Maarten. Since 2007, the island has been a separate French overseas collectivity, no longer administered as part of Guadeloupe.
Traveller tips
- Most international travel connects through Sint Maarten's Princess Juliana Airport before a short onward flight to Saint-Barthélemy's Gustaf III Airport.
- December to February is the island's peak social season and its most expensive and heavily booked period.
- The island is small and hilly; a rented car is the practical way to move between Gustavia, Colombier and St Jean.
- As a French collectivity, entry requirements for many nationalities mirror mainland France's Schengen rules; check current requirements before booking.
Where this is
Gustavia, Saint-Barthélemy