Thinking of Buying an Island

According to Forbes.com it’ll cost you. Vatu Vara, the most expensive island on this year’s list, has an asking price of $75 million, and comes with miles of white-sand beaches, palm groves, an aquamarine lagoon, limestone cliffs and surrounding waters filled with sailfish and black marlin. To the extent neighbors exist on an island chain, Mel Gibson lives just down the way, 20 miles east on Mago Island. But sometimes, just as with local housing markets, there are compelling reasons to rent.

“Man cannot live by one island alone,” says John Greer, president of Unusual Villa & Island Rentals. “Why have only one island, when you can have them all?”

Finnish fashion designer Peter Nygard’s private island in the Bahamas, called Nygard Cay, rents for $35,000 per day and has played host to Oprah Winfrey, Robert DeNiro and Sean Connery. The Mayan-inspired compound boasts an aquarium, three-screen movie theater, tennis court, volleyball court and 48-foot fishing boat. Worried about the slow pace of island living? The legendary Atlantis casino on Paradise Island is only 20 minutes away.

Of cause, there are also private islands in NJ. I spent my summers as a kid on such an island in the Navasink River in Rumson called Barley Point. This island, which is still in existence, is a cooperative where everyone owns shares in the island and have proprietary leases for one of the 40 some small bungalows that are there. Nothing fancy, but a great place to spend childhood summers.