Your Guide to Mustique, the Private Caribbean Island Where You Can Stay in David Bowie's Former Villa
Reading about Mustique is enticing yet intimidating. For nearly 60 years, a glamorous, often recurring cast of jet setters that includes royals, musicians, and moguls have retreated to this 1400-acre private island in the Caribbean for equal parts peace and privacy. But the wild, highly-publicized tales that have escaped its untamed shores—from all-night cocktail affairs to the occasional real affair—have given it a larger-than-life air of mystery and exclusivity that belies its surprisingly laid-back and welcoming vibe.
Mustique’s free-spiritedness recalls the memory of one of its earliest denizens, the late Princess Margaret, who frequently fled the gaze—and responsibilities—of Buckingham Palace at the five-bedroom villa gifted to her by her friend and the island’s original owner, Lord Colin Tennant. Tennant, who’d purchased the island from St. Vincent and the Grenadines for just $126,000, aimed to create this sort of scrutiny-free haven for his aristocratic friends, including the princess. The paparazzi were famously unwelcome. Later, it was an invitation to Margaret’s pleasure-seeking parties that attracted current resident Mick Jagger, who in turn inspired fellow musician David Bowie to purchase a villa of his own. And while HRH and her friends may be gone, their energy, and houses, remain—among some of the 100 or so villas available for rent—and the island has preserved its original wildness in a topography of unpaved roads and unmanicured beaches.