Luxury Home Magazine

L et me take you to a place where only the owner’s family and invited guests have known to go for decades. Jeneice, the island’s self-titled “domestic maid,” says the Southern Cays are the sweetest and best. Consulting to refresh the dwellings, revitalize and energize private island Hummingbird Cay (HBC), was an experience of a lifetime. Arriving at Exuma International Airport was breathtaking, and astronauts were right; the Bahamas collective miles of islands are “the most beautiful,” and unique sight “from the sky.” I reminisced of my own island home during a short ride with Smitty’s taxi through Georgetown, on what it was once like in the ’60s and ’70s. The experience continued when Sam, “caretaker” for HBC, picked me up by boat alongside my associate Elle at Moss Town dock; it was a concrete driveway to a bay off a dirt road familiar to locals. He whisked us off on intoxicating aqua-blue waters. I could hear my client/friend saying, “the ocean and the clouds are... well, you’ll just have to see for yourself.” Baby-blue, cotton candy clouds appeared genuine by colors reflected from the sea together with an ensemble of the sun setting against periwinkle skies and the electrifying horizon in orange, red and pink hues. We arrive within 20 minutes by the private island’s water taxi to a quaint and perfectly protected docking station, and are greeted by a streamlined shark and other beautiful marine life. As I set foot on the solid archipelago limestone island, it dawned on me that very moment: Hummingbird Cay would forever change me. “Dad used to sit on the deck, and the seabirds would fly over to him every time,” says my friend. Joey and Harold arrived days later to film our progress and capture the inquisitive feathered friends in flight almost daily. As I learned about the island’s natural resources, it made me want to bring home a lifestyle more like HBC. The morning brew is freshly picked organic “strongback herbal tea,” so smooth and mellow tasting for any time of the day; there are many other varieties, but this was everyone’s favorite. Dinner fare was freshly caught snapper, grouper and barracuda from a “Bahamian hand-reel.” No need for a pole of any kind. The catching was quick and easy for any novice. The fish danced on my taste bud’s imagination with thoughts of sashimi carpaccio with jalapeno, grouper on a BBQ, barracuda marinated and seared in a cast-iron skillet. A popular side dish is freshly grown and picked green peas mixed with rice or simply buttered. ADVERTORIAL 2 LuxuryHomeMagazine.com 65