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 New Providence | Grand Bahama | Abaco | The Out Islands WELCOME BAHAMAS - NASSAU, CABLE BEACH & PARADISE ISLAND - 2003  Estate names Obvious, obscure, foreign But few are humble Many of the estates in and around Nassau have interesting names - some pretty obscure, others easily traceable. " The lay of the land often dictates the name of a property," says realtor George Damianos. "Many of the names are obvious." The Hermitage on Eastern Rd is obviously church-related; and it doesn't take a great deal of imagination to track the meaning of names like Sea Grapes, Fairview, Windwhistle or Sunsational, at Old Fort Bay with its panoramic views of the ocean. Windswept is a touch of France with sprawling balcony fanned by the breezes of Nassau Harbour. A little knowledge of any of the Romance languages will enable you to figure out why Sir Nicholas Nuttall's old place on the beach at Goodman's Bay was called La Playa; or that you might always be welcomed at Bienvenida, near the Cable Beach golf course or that Laguna, a spacious estate in Lyford Cay, is on a lagoon. You may not be able to figure out that it was once owned by Italian banker Alberto Calvi, owner of Banco Ambrosiano, which became involved in a high profile money scandal with the Vatican. Calvi reputedly committed suicide by hanging himself from London Bridge. Swiss sailor/banker Pierre Siegenthaler was involved in a missing $72 million following liquidation of the bank. He spent time in prison in Switzerland and died several years ago. Daiquiri, on Eastern Rd, had its beginnings as the original rectory for St. Anne's Church on Fox Hill Rd, but you can be sure it wasn't called Daiquiri then. It was acquired by an American family named Lansing, who later sold it, and a beach house on Rose Island, to Jack Mactaggart (later Sir Jack) in the 1940s. The Mactaggart family still owns the house and Mactaggart's Beach on Rose Island. The Lansing's still own Lansing Cay in the Exumas. Camperdown, home of the Dupuch family since "a few days before World War II in 1939," was once a vast estate stretching from East Bay St to Yamacraw Hill Road. Pierre Dupuch, who grew up there and recalls daily chores including the tending of sheep and pigs, believes the estate, which his father assembled over many years, may have been named after the Earl of Camperdown. Sanctuary, at the east end of the island, is the personal refuge of Basil Albury, retired executive director of the Bahamas Investment Authority. "I called it Sanctuary in reference to my time in the seminary, and it was my personal ?get away' place. There were very few other homes out here at the time. It really was a sanctuary," he says. Far Cry, on Eastern Rd, was so-named "because it was a far cry from downtown," according to Damianos. Villa Capulet on Montagu Foreshore was at one time owned by Swedish industrialist Alex Wenner-Gren. The estate's name refers to William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and the longstanding Italian feud between the Capulet family of Verona and the Montagues. In 1949, Wenner-Gren was invited to the inauguration of President-elect Harry Truman, and later, Truman's daughter Margaret, and her husband Clifton Daniel, spent their honeymoon at Villa Capulet. Shangri-La, on Paradise Island was another Wenner-Gren home, named after the imaginary paradise on earth, the hidden Tibetan valley in James Hilton's novel Lost Horizon. Unfortunately, the mansion burned down in 1956. Perched on a hilltop on more than one acre of beautifully terraced and landscaped land at Lyford Cay is Le Rochefort, a 10,000-sq-ft custom-built home. Designed with meticulous attention, this home has five bedrooms, eight baths, and a large reception area. Other features include marble floors, a gourmet kitchen, breakfast room, library, staff apartment, three-car garage, elevator, pool and patio. Lyford Cay is home to some of the most sought-after properties in the world. In this rarified environment sits Tigh na mare, Gaelic for "house by the sea," a two-storey house nestling amid lushly landscaped grounds at the confluence of three canals. Villa Scorpio, named for the eighth sign of the Zodiac, is a canalfront Lyford Cay home, reputedly owned by an Italian countess and currently on the market for $3.8 million. La Sfida, at Lyford Cay, presented John and Nalia Cates with so many problems when they were building it in the early 1980s that they named it the Spanish equivalent of "the challenge." John Howard Payne may have envisioned the estates of Nassau and its environs when he penned the opera Clari, the Maid of Milan: "Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home." |
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