Crave peace? Buy own island

CARIBE CAY, Bahamas - Wallace Tutt made a name and a fortune designing and building lavish homes for the glitterati: Gianni Versace's mansion in Miami Beach, houses for Cher in Florida and California.

But when he searched for his ideal home, he chose a tiny private island where he takes refuge in solitude, lying in a hammock surrounded by turquoise waters far from the demands of society.

"I like escaping," Tutt said. "We have a phone here, but I only use it for my convenience. I plug it in when I want."

Caribe Cay, valued at $3.5-million, is one of dozens of private islands that dot the Bahamas and the Caribbean.

Living such a life is pricey and logistically difficult, but in the past few decades a lucrative business has grown from selling and leasing islands to people seeking their own private paradise.

"It's been going on for decades, but really in the past 10 years, there's been quite a bit of investing," said John Christie, a Bahamian real estate broker. "If you have a beautiful private island, people will pay good money for it."

It's not just in the Caribbean. Islands are for sale from Fiji in the South Pacific to Canada's Nova Scotia, ranging from houseless islets costing less than $100,000 to sprawling islands with mansions priced in the tens of millions.

The Bahamas has a particularly large number. Real estate agents estimate 60 or so are scattered across the archipelago of 2,700 islands and cays off Florida.

Tutt spotted Caribe Cay on a yachting trip a decade ago and bought it in 1996, pouring $1.2-million into renovating its three cottages, adding a pool, installing a reverse-osmosis water system to purify the brackish water, and importing furnishings from chandeliers to colonial-era antiques.

"I've always had a fantasy of buying a private island," said Tutt, who grew up in Nanafalia, Ala.

Stepping off the dock, visitors are greeted by a hand-painted "No Trespassing" sign. The flag devised by Tutt for his island - a green palm tree on a white background - flaps on a pole in the garden. Stairs carved into coral rock lead down to the ocean, where reefs offer good snorkeling.

Tutt said the isolation lets him "totally disconnect," sipping Chardonnay by the pool and letting his two mutts run wild on the beach.

His 2-acre slice of real estate is just a stone's throw from inhabited Eleuthera Island, from which 900-foot-long underwater pipes carry telephone and electric wires across a thicket of mangroves.

It's a five-minute boat ride to Harbour Island, where the 47-year-old millionaire owns and manages the posh Rock House inn.

Tutt considers Caribe Cay home, staying for days or weeks at a time with partner Don Purdy.

Tutt and other island owners say living the life of a privileged castaway poses big challenges, especially the constant need to ship in everything, from milk to appliance parts.

Real estate agents say some islands reappear on the market after a few years when owners grow weary of inconveniences - or are enticed to cash in on rising prices.

Some 120 prime islands worldwide are listed by Farhad Vladi, a broker with offices in Hamburg, Germany, and Halifax, Nova Scotia. He said his company sold about 50 islands in 2003, calling it an "extremely good year."

To help cover costs while he is away, Tutt rents out his island for $15,000 a week, a price that includes butler, chef and housekeeper. He said guests on Caribe Cay, and an adjacent island he bought in 2002 and recently sold for $1.6-million, have included musician Iggy Pop, NBA player Jason Kidd and actor Robert De Niro.

"This is where they have their own control of their environment," Tutt said. "You're in your own kingdom."

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