Celebrities Who Own Private Islands

For celebrities who have the cash to spare, owning an island provides the perfect getaway. Private islands don’t come cheap; in addition to the cost of buying the land, owners have to supply their own water and electricity, create waste disposal and build a dock or an airstrip for access. Then there’s the cost of security: Somebody has to watch over the place when you’re not there.

Beatle Island

There’s nothing on Dorinish Island and there never has been. Perhaps that was part of its appeal to John Lennon who, at the height of his fame, was heard to say “There is nowhere I can go anymore where they can’t find me.”

Lennon bought the island in 1967 for ?1,700 after he saw a newspaper advertisement for “an island off Ireland.” While awaiting planning board approval to build a house there, Lennon paid for a caravan painted with psychedelic colors to be installed on the island as a temporary getaway for himself, his wife Cynthia and his 4-year-old son, Julian. But the marriage broke up before building could start and Lennon allowed the building permit to lapse.

Rumor has it that Lennon changed his mind about building a home on Dorinish because his new companion, Yoko Ono, wasn’t fond of the place.

Donie Quirke … wonders if the answer lies with Ono. He remembers the Beatle sitting at the top of the island gazing out over the glassy bay, but his memory of Ono is of a black-clad figure flapping in panic as nesting terns divebombed her.

In the 1970s, Lennon gave permission for a group of hippies led by Sid Rawle to build a commune on the island. The group, known as the Diggers, stayed for two years until a fire destroyed the main tent and the group abandoned the island.

Shortly before his death, Lennon was talking again about building on the island. But it wasn’t meant to be and Ono sold Dornish Island to a local farmer in 1983.

Teriaroa, Brando’s bounty

Tetiaroa, which Marlon Brando bought in 1962 after filming “Mutiny on the Bounty” in Tahiti, was once the resort of Tahiti’s royal families. Brando lived there in rustic semi-seclusion until his death in 2004.
Christian Brando was the Polynesian island’s only only inhabitant until a small eco-resort opened there earlier this year.

Mad Mel’s Melanesian hideaway

Mel Gibson bought Mago Island in Fiji in 2004. The actor/director paid $15 million to the former owner, Tokyu Corporation of Japan. The purchase was protested by natives at the time who were angry at being displaced.

Johnny Depp’s island retreat

The Pirate of the Caribbean has his own Caribbean hideaway in Little Hall’s Pond Cay an island in the Bahamas that he bought in 2004 for $3.6 million. The island, part of the Exuma archipelago of about 365 islands in the southern Bahamas, is accessible only by plane, boat or helicopter and boasts six white sand beaches, a private harbor and a palm-tree-fringed lagoon.

Nicolas Cage
Depp’s close friend Nicolas Cage is also a neighbor. Cage bought Leaf Cay in the Exumas in 2006. The island retreat boasts a 1,500-foot airstrip, underground wiring and its own desalination plant. The 40-acre island reportedly cost Cage $3 million, a bargain as far as Cage is concerned. “It’s nice to walk on the beach and not have to worry about having your picture taken,” he told the Associated Press.

Faith Hill and Tim McGraw
There must be something in the air in the Exumas that celebrities find particularly appealing; Faith Hill and Tim McGraw own another island in the chain.

Gene Hackman and Robin Williams prefer Canada

Rumor has it that Gene Hackman and Robin Williams each own an island among the Gulf Islands off British Columbia. Details are sketchy, but the San Francisco Chronicle published a rumor that Williams was chewed out by a store owner in Salt Spring Island, BC for reading a newspaper without buying it.

Tony Curtis’ rocky retreat

Rocky and Curtis Islands in Nova Scotia, once owned by actor Tony Curtis, were on sale for CAN$245,000 as recently this January. The only building on the islands, off the coast near Halifax, is a cottage. Curtis, apparently, likes it rough.

Richard Branson’s Necker Island

Virgin Atlantic owner Richard Branson bought this once-uninhabited island in the Caribbean more than 30 years ago. He’s been slowly building on it ever since. But Branson doesn’t keep his island to himself; anyone with enough cash can rent the island. It’s an excellent venue for a special event like a wedding–just ask Google co-founder Larry Page who was married here.

David Copperfield’s fountain of youth

Magician David Copperfield also rents out his island, Musha Cay, in the southern Bahamas. Oprah Winfrey and John Travolta have reportedly stayed here. And the other Google co-founder, Sergey Brin, got married here. It costs $325,000 a week to rent this 150-acre retreat, which Copperfield bills as “the most private private- island resort in the world.” Musha Cay is one of four islands Copperfield bought for $50 million; the other three act as buffers to the resortm ensuring maximum privacy.

But Musha Cay offers more than private beaches and luxe accommodations. According to Copperfield, the waters off the island offer perpetual youth.

“I’ve discovered a true phenomenon,” he told Reuters in a telephone interview. “You can take dead leaves, they come in contact with the water, they become full of life again. … Bugs or insects that are near death, come in contact with the water, they’ll fly away. It’s an amazing thing, very, very exciting.”

Leo’s eco-friendly resort

Leonardo DiCaprio bought Blackadore Caye off Belize in Central America in 2005 in order to build an eco-hotel there. DiCaprio struck a deal with Four Seasons Resorts to build the hotel, which will still preserve the island?s majestic wildlife and marine life. Groundbreaking is scheduled for 2008.

The Onassis retreat

Athena Onassis, the sole heir to the Aristotle Onassis fortune, still owns the Greek island of Skorpios, where Jackie Kennedy became Jackie O, but she never visits it.

For five years in the 1960s, Skorpios was home to some 500 workers who built the structures there as well as the island’s electrical plant and water supply. Now about 30 people work on the estate–largely as security guards. Aristotle Onassis and his children are buried there.

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