# St Barts Forums > St Barts Island Main Forum >  >  When Was Saint-Barth "Discovered"

## cassidain

Cwater (see you at the beach) raised an interesting point in a current thread regarding pre and post "discovered" Saint-Barth

Mme Cassidain and I first visited in 1988, and I would say it was "discovered" at that point, but a photo (below) from Marie Claire Magras' FB showing Flamands in the 70's suggests the tiny volcanic rock in the Caribbean was not too, too discovered at that point.

So, you old-timers, when _was_ Saint-Barth "discovered" ?

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## amyb

I think it opened up when David Rockefeller decided to build his compound here.

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## JEK

In July of 1969 there were quite a few Americans with homes on the island. From the Porter Henry newsletter.

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## JEK

And the cruise ships had discovered the island in 1969

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## Mary Liz

We discovered St. Barts in 1985.

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## shihadehs

We discovered the island and our lives changed for the better in 1986

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## Cwater

Cheryl & I discovered the island on our honeymoon in 1987.  There was a charm and vibe that we had never experienced anywhere else.  It was laid back and so unlike NYC.

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## mattdinzey

I knew some of the names on that list... The Elters, Claessens, Bob Sauer... Also another couple who my parents knew very well were the Schmidts.  I think the first time I was on St.B was in the mid 70s. We were on a family trip to St. Maarten, and we took a day trip over. My parents hired a cab driver to take us around the island. His name was Hugo, but I can't remember the last name.  Also, we met Marius for the first time. (He was my Dad's cousin!) After that trip, we skipped St. Maarten and went to St. Barths all the time.  I think the island started to change in the late 70s.- early 80s.

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## KevinS

The Schmidts - did they have Bois Neuf in Colombier, which later became François Plantation?

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## JEK

Found the name on another P.H. newsletter

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## mattdinzey

> The Schmidts - did they have Bois Neuf in Colombier, which later became François Plantation?



Bois Neuf??? Maybe, it sounds familiar! 
M

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## noel

Didi's parents, Oliver and May McKee, visited Antigua often from the fifties until the eighties and got to be good friends with the Fuller family, who are pretty well known in the area.  They started visiting St. Barts in the sixties and seventies, and built a small house in Lurin in the late seventies on land they bought from the owners of the Santa Fe.  They were friends with the Biddles and Alice Jones (there is a reference to Senator Jones in JEK's entry -- he was a state senator from New Jersey and had long since passed away).  Alice Jones had a wonderful spread in the woods at the top of Lurin overlooking Gouverneur, and we understand she sold the property to David Letterman (maybe someone can confirm that). They were also friends with Frank Goulet, a New Yorker who owned the big property at Gouverneur now owned by the wealthy Russian (I am bad with names these days).  Goulet was gay, and after Didi's father died in 1982, we told May that she should marry him because he would leave her alone and maybe adopt us. They were also friends with the Grovers, who owned the great property in Grand Fond that Rudolph Nureyev bought.

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## JEK

I know the popular response is:  “It was discovered when I first came” but I find this old history from Porter Henry and now Noel, to be fascinating. Charlie Biddle needs to weigh in with his recollections. BTW, a big tip of the hat to Charlie for allowing me to copy his previous mimeographed sheets!

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## Rosemary

These names and addresses, and dates, are fascinating.  I am interested in how most, apart from those explained, chose to visit and stay.

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## Cwater

> I know the popular response is:  “It was discovered when I first came” but I find this old history from Porter Henry and now Noel, to be fascinating. Charlie Biddle needs to weigh in with his recollections. BTW, a big tip of the hat to Charlie for allowing me to copy his previous mimeographed sheets!



Yes we can go with facts which you are excellent at reminding us of or go with the emotional pull that our happy place has for us.  I like the popular response.

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## Happycamper

Discovered by barefoot escapists--1950s
Discovered by families with means--1970s
Discovered by honeymooners--1980s  (Airport terminal opens 1984)
Discovered by celebrities--1990s

Discovered by us--2002 on a weeklong trip with wife and kids.  The kids (5, 8, 10) played touch football on the beach and were joined by two monokini-ed French college girls who said they wanted to try "football americain."  It was quite the cultural exchange.  The Wall Restaurant sealed the deal.

You can see from this graph that air traffic hasn't changed since 2000 so I think we can safely say it was discovered by then.  [edit] graph won't post, so I'll just tell you SBH has been steady about about 150-200K passengers per year since 2000.

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## elgreaux

> Discovered by barefoot escapists--1950s
> Discovered by families with means--1970s
> Discovered by honeymooners--1980s  (Airport terminal opens 1984)
> Discovered by celebrities--1990s
> 
> Discovered by us--2002 on a weeklong trip with wife and kids.  The kids (5, 8, 10) played touch football on the beach and were joined by two monokini-ed French college girls who said they wanted to try "football americain."  It was quite the cultural exchange.  The Wall Restaurant sealed the deal.
> 
> You can see from this graph that air traffic hasn't changed since 2000 so I think we can safely say it was discovered by then.  [edit] graph won't post, so I'll just tell you SBH has been steady about about 150-200K passengers per year since 2000.



there were celebrities here long before the 1990s's.... although I suppose it depends who you consider to be a celebrity.

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## dadto6

1978 for Anita and I

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## JEK

> there were celebrities here long before the 1990s's.... although I suppose it depends who you consider to be a celebrity.




From Porter Henry's newsletter Spring 1991. Tim's recollection of the Grover property was correct.

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## Happycamper

_"there were celebrities here long before the 1990s's.... although I suppose it depends who you consider to be a celebrity."

_Agreed!  I was thinking about celebrities coming to be seen as opposed to celebrities coming to disappear.  For example, it is often claimed that Howard Hughes and Greta Garbo were visitors, but if I do a google search for a photo, nothing turns up so they didn't seem to be using it for their self-promotion.

A 1985 NYTimes article trying to described how celebrities quietly go visit. "'In a whole week we managed not to make a single friend,'' exults the writer Kati Marton, who is married to the ABC-TV newscaster Peter Jennings. ''After a lunatic year, we left our two children with guiltless abandon to get away for a much needed and overdue time together. We felt like castaways living in a Gauguin world. We didn't plan anything, we just enjoyed the views and each other and shed the trauma of the fast-track life. In the mornings, the French maid came tiptoeing into our villa. What if we were naked? She'd seen it all before. When we boarded the Pan Am 747 at St. Martin, flashbulbs began to pop and a strange woman flung herself into Peter's lap. That's when I knew it was all over.''

Challenge question: Who were the first, or biggest or most flamboyant to visit?  Rockefeller and Rothchild both bought houses in 1959(?) but again, these were for escapes, not for escapades.

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## davesmom

Starting back in the 70s, I was teaching at the University of Michigan and one of my office mates was named Lisa Lundelius before she got married to a guy named Alex Bermudez. She was a really nice girl, and her family was, I believe, of Swedish origin.  (I had been spending time in Guadeloupe and Martinique as well as SXM at that time which included dialect analysis of Créole, besides pure vacation.)  Because of my interests, Lisa told me of a little island named Saint-Barth, where her family owned a pretty nice piece of property, and I got the impression that the property was not super developed but I think it was in or near Gustavia.  Perhaps someone knows of her family from that time? She said that there was not much there and I think her parents had passed on, and I felt really sorry for her, which was kind of young to lose your parents, as we were only in our 20s at that time.  She told me that she was thinking of selling it.  That was all I knew of her family.  Then DD and I came to SBH in about 2003 or so, met some really nice people as well as shop owners and once there, I have to admit, there is no place else I would rather be.

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## JEK

> _"there were celebrities here long before the 1990s's.... although I suppose it depends who you consider to be a celebrity."
> 
> _Agreed!  I was thinking about celebrities coming to be seen as opposed to celebrities coming to disappear.  For example, it is often claimed that Howard Hughes and Greta Garbo were visitors, but if I do a google search for a photo, nothing turns up so they didn't seem to be using it for their self-promotion.



Eden Rock shared this short bio of first owner Remy de Haenen (attached) Which has the story of Greta Garbo and many others.





RemyDeHaenen.pdf

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## Happycamper

Excellent little bio.  Thanks for posting.

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## Cwater

> Eden Rock shared this short bio of first owner Remy de Haenen (attached) Which has the story of Greta Garbo and many others.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> RemyDeHaenen.pdf



during our first visit in 1987, we investigated Eden Rock for breakfast.  We parked and walked in.  There was no one there.  We called out and a maid walked in.  She said no one was there to cook breakfast so she did for us.  Amazing!  Best scrambled eggs ever.

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