![Mustique is a playground for the rich and the famous](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/travel/2024/01/16/TELEMMGLPICT000362761625_17054224017630_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqNr7buqbkV04AEATLFYLNjAsIcagKWDTsYii0WZbrxoU.jpeg?imwidth=680)
The salacious secrets of Mustique, favourite island of the rich, famous and royals
No Caribbean idyll has seen as much rowdiness and scandal as Mustique, where Kate Moss recently prepared for her 50th birthday bash
![Mustique is a playground for the rich and the famous](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/travel/2024/01/16/TELEMMGLPICT000362761625_17054224017630_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqNr7buqbkV04AEATLFYLNjAsIcagKWDTsYii0WZbrxoU.jpeg?imwidth=680)
If you were perusing the celebrity gossip pages or the glossier sections of social media last week, you will not have failed to notice Kate Moss. Britain’s greatest supermodel is hardly a shrinking violet on the most ordinary of days, but she was particularly visible amid the mid-January gloom (on January 16, to be exact) – when, with typical temerity, she managed to turn 50 without looking anywhere near that supposedly seismic age.
There she was, on the big night itself, stepping out of the Ritz hotel into the cold of a Paris winter night, vaguely wrapped in a sheer lace dress, bound for chic 8th arrondissement restaurant Laurent for dinner with friends and family. And there she was, days earlier, in similarly close company, sitting on a Caribbean beach in what was described as a spiritual “celebratory circle”; part of a pre-birthday getaway to Mustique.
If you paid particular attention to the latter set of images – the bucolic floral head-dress, and the equally leafy necklace; the composed, cross-legged pose; the conch shell placed on the sand in front of her – you might have deduced a slight slowing-down as the one-time “waif” of the Nineties catwalk entered the calmer waters of relative middle age.
While other social-media photos suggested that the mini-break had its rowdier moments, a waterfront contemplation and “celebratory circle” feel a far cry from the now-legendary celebrations when the birthday girl hit 30. Back then, in 2004, it was a house party codenamed “The Beautiful And Damned” – so wild that it received a visit from noise prevention officers.
Undeterred, revellers caught cabs to iconic Mayfair hotel Claridge’s. There, the fun continued until 7.30am, the model lying across a grand piano in a seventh-floor suite, singing champagne-fuelled songs as Jools Holland tickled the ivories.
It is only natural that, 20 years on, and with your grown-up daughter in tow, you might want something a little quieter while preparing to blow out your candles. And what could be quieter than a Caribbean island of a mere 2.2 square miles – and a population of 500?
Take a glance at the map, and Mustique does indeed look like a sleepy back-water. There it sits, part of the lovely archipelago that is St Vincent and the Grenadines – gleaming in azure shallows to the south and to the north-east of, respectively, its neighbours Bequia and Canouan. Pull the focus out further, and the context becomes clearer (Mustique lies west of Barbados, and, give or take a few degrees, to the north-east of Grenada), without any real suggestion of rowdiness, loudness or, dare it be said, scandal becoming apparent.
But then, appearances can be deceptive. And, in the case of Mustique, entirely inaccurate. Because, for over half a century now, what was once a tiny outpost of coral and scrub has been one of the planet’s most exclusive retreats for the rich and famous.
Rock stars, actors, models, fashion designers and royalty; all have sought out Mustique as an escape from the pressures of their very public lives – and, in many cases, have used it as a setting for riotous merry-making. It might not quite be – to quote Kate Moss’s 30th birthday party invites, via the source material of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1922 novel – the realm of The Beautiful and Damned, but it has a reputation for up-all-night high-jinks all the same.
![Celebrities flock to Mustique each winter](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/travel/2024/01/16/TELEMMGLPICT000362761583_17054259692870_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqgsaO8O78rhmZrDxTlQBjdLdu0TL-Cg_AMOUqySXmFgU.jpeg?imwidth=350)
It wasn’t always thus, of course. Mustique’s history is much the same as that of any other Caribbean island – an indigenous population that had migrated in from South America, wiped out by diseases to which these unfortunate souls had no immunity when Europeans arrived; a flirtation with piracy, buccaneers stowing ships and treasure in its unmarked bays; two centuries of sugar production, built on the sweat and corpses of African slaves.
But Mustique’s story is also different – in that it metamorphosed from colonial territory to precious possession. The sugar era was kickstarted in 1763 when two wealthy farmers, Alexander Campbell and John Aitcheson, bought it from the British crown.
Despite some lean periods in the interim, it has remained in private ownership ever since; with a particular assuredness since 1958, when it was purchased by ambitious aristocrat Colin Tennant (later the third Baron Glenconner) for £45,000. Tennant had a special vision for the island, later founding the Mustique Company (in 1968) as its legal framework, with the intention of making it a sun-swaddled hideaway for the monied elite and their friends.
So it came to pass. Fifty-six years later, Mustique is home to 120 elaborate villas, and a single hotel (the 17 rooms of plantation building The Cotton House).
![Princess Margaret, Colin Tennant and Anne Tennant await Queen Elizabeth ll's arrival to Mustique in 1977](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/travel/2024/01/16/TELEMMGLPICT000348911465_17054221252720_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqP-t--XiuvYMJPd4Ncdgt2haFS7t6wUD2c5CAYw-u7FY.jpeg?imwidth=350)
That said, the famous figure most closely connected with the island was neither a musician nor a thespian. Tennant gave Mustique’s image a huge boost in 1960 when he gifted a 10-acre plot to Princess Margaret; a wedding present in celebration of her marriage to Antony Armstrong-Jones. This royal union, infamously, would not last – but the relationship between the then-Queen’s sister and Mustique certainly did. You might even say that her presence lingers, 22 years after her death, so close was the association.
Margaret took that plot of land, and commissioned what would become Les Jolies Eaux.
Aptly named in its position at the south tip of the island, the five-bedroom neo-Georgian “Beautiful Waters” was completed by 1972, and would become Margaret’s refuge as her marriage disintegrated. There were glamorous evenings on the terrace, elegant soirées with confidantes, and dalliances that went far beyond friendship.
The princess’s affair with Roddy Llewellyn, a British aristocrat and garden designer 17 years her junior, was exposed when long-lens photos of the pair in swimsuits on the villa’s beach were splashed on the tabloid front pages in February 1976. But while the salaciousness of the story sent ripples across the Buckingham Palace pond – in July 1978, Margaret would become the first front-line British royal to divorce since Princess Victoria of Edinburgh parted ways with her husband in 1901 – Les Jolies Eaux would remain close to her heart.
![Mustique's legendary landmark destination, Basil's Bar](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/travel/2024/01/16/TELEMMGLPICT000281748377_17054225066220_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bqfp92onrxCPHoA1vgDHQjma0_3QtH5iTgEUHGDCkt6eA.jpeg?imwidth=350)
Ultimately, she would surrender it as she received it, giving it away as a wedding present – to her son, David, in 1996. Viscount Linley was not quite as readily entranced by the villa; he sold it in 1999 for around $2.9 million (£2.3 million). It can now be rented – from $33,000 (£26,000) a week.
Gossip swirled that Margaret had other lovers on Mustique; one of the saltier rumours linked her to Mick Jagger. The Rolling Stones frontman has never been indiscreet enough to confirm or deny the liaison – and no proof exists that the idea is more than tittle-tattle.
But Jagger has certainly felt at home on Mustique. He has his own villa there, Stargroves, which enjoys an enviable position on the north coast. Nor is it a glitter-strewn relic of the singer’s 1970s decadence, consigned to obscurity now that he is far into pensionable age. When his eighth child arrived in 2016 – via a relationship with ballet dancer Melanie Hamrick that, with a gap of 44 years, rather dwarfs the age difference between Princess Margaret and her (as the tabloids put it) toyboy – beachfront photos of mother and baby uploaded to Instagram were taken overlooking L’Ansecoy Bay, on Stargroves’ doorstep.
Ever the keen businessman, Jagger makes the villa available for rent in the lengthy periods when he is not using it – and if you feel like living like a Rolling Stone for a few days, you can book a stay, from $2,358 (£1,864) per night.
![Mick Jagger (pictured with former partner Jerry Hall) has a villa on Mustique](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/travel/2024/01/16/TELEMMGLPICT000362761755_17054223454170_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqBhVNhd4Ykzfm3d3Ezk5I-Vx0vitBIW5mwRMm3pKFkxI.jpeg?imwidth=350)
Alternatively, you could opt for another palatial property with significant rock-star heritage. Out on the west side of the island, the Mandalay Estate is also available for high-end hire. Styled as a Balinese temple – its various bedrooms and its genteel “pavilions” arranged around a central water feature with an infinity pool, a waterfall and a koi pond – it was constructed for David Bowie in 1989.
But unlike Jagger and Stargroves, the Thin White Duke soon wearied of his Caribbean plaything. Though enamoured with the location, and its beauty, he found the views too distracting when he was trying to work (the villa had a studio under Bowie’s ownership).
“The thing about Mandalay is that it is broken up into little areas that you can get lost in,” he explained. “The house is such a tranquil place that I have absolutely no motivation to write things when I’m there.” He would sell it after five years, for $5 million (£4 million).
Were you so minded, you might argue that he made the correct decision. That time-frame – the late Eighties to the early Nineties – is generally regarded as the artistic and commercial nadir of Bowie’s otherwise spectacular career; a difficult spell when he found himself in a musical slump that he would only begin to emerge from in the mid-Nineties.
It would be a stretch to say that selling Mandalay sparked the renaissance that continued until his death in 2016 – but Mustique does seem to have a reductive effect on musicians.
Just as Bowie checked out, Noel Gallagher checked in. It would be no yelp of hyperbole to state that, at the start of 1996, Oasis were the biggest band on the planet, riding a wave of success that had seen their second album, (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?, take up residence at the top of the charts. Nor was there any sign of trouble ahead when the group’s creative engine decamped to the Caribbean in the May, for a well-earned holiday.
Where did he go? To Mustique, and to Jagger’s villa. Here, friends, lovers and band associates – including none other than Kate Moss, and her then-boyfriend Johnny Depp – partied hard. Meanwhile Gallagher sequestered himself in one of the bedrooms to work on fledgling versions of the tracks that would become the third Oasis album, Be Here Now. Its 2016 remaster includes them as a third disc – entitled “The Mustique Sessions”.
Alas, something went wrong between conception and delivery. Although hailed as a masterpiece when it was released in August 1997, critical opinion of Be Here Now soon soured. And while it has now sold over eight million copies, it has become known as a byword for musical bloat – its 72-minute running time padded out with extended jams and half-baked ideas (not least the nine-minute Beatles pastiche All Around The World). The decline of Oasis, culminating in a bitter break-up in 2009, arguably commenced here.
Again, it would be an exaggeration to lay the blame on Mustique and its honey-coloured beaches. But perhaps something of the island’s bohemian ambience seeped, unheard and unnoticed, into those early sessions – turning a group whose Mancunian street-smarts had made their first two albums lean and muscular into something rather less focused. Certainly, it is hard to imagine the Noel Gallagher who strode out of Burnage allowing a Hollywood heart-throb to play on his band’s still-revered debut album Definitely Maybe – but there is Johnny Depp anyway, adding slide guitar to Be Here Now track Fade In-Out.
Not that anyone toasting Moss and her half-century on the island last week would have worried too much about studio trivia and the merits of 27-year-old music. There were flower garlands to wear, sunsets to be admired, conversations to be had into the night. On Mustique, the Caribbean haven where the party never really ends, it tends to be that way.