St Barts is the New St Barts

Every once in a while we read in the travel or lifestylelargest plane that can land has 19 seats.
press that such and such an island or destination isYou can fly in directly from San Juan however the
going to be the "New St Barts" Bluntly, it can't be done,majority of visitors come in through Sint Maarten, the
and here's why not.closest nearby island with an airport that can handle
What we have is a sophisticated, cultured andjets, private or otherwise, then a transfer and a ten
luxurious island in the middle of the Caribbean that is aminute hop in small twin engine plane over to St Barts
gourmet's delight and features some of the bestand the famous roller coaster landing.
hotels, high end restaurants and most fashionable clubsTo add another factor, the airport closes at sunset.
in the Americas sprinkled between twenty one pristineInconvenient perhaps, but this means no night flights
beaches surrounded by the cleanest seas there are.and thus no airplane noise to disturb your evening.
In brief, St Barts is a haven for the connoisseur,Ferries are an option, but not overly frequent or
seriously looking for the best things in life. There are nopleasant, and then there are the charter speedboats,
fast food chains, no high rises, no casinos, no stripwhich are elegant and luxurious, but pricy for a 40
clubs, no all-inclusive resorts and while cruise ships dominute ride for your average traveler.
visit, they are kept at a discrete distance.St Barts is French. Not just French in culture and
So how would one go about creating a "New Stlanguage, but fully part of the French Republic and, for
Barts"? On the one hand recreating the geographicalthe moment, fully part of the European Union. There
and historical circumstances that gave rise to St Bartsare almost no restrictions for EU citizens coming to
would be a tricky task.work on St Barts (there are exceptions, but not many).
For those of you who don't know the island, a briefThis gives St Barts opportunities for recruitment that is
outline: 8 square miles of island about 17 degrees northrare in the Caribbean, pretty much the whole of
of the equator, colonized by French pioneers in theEurope as a recruitment pool: from Portuguese stone
17th century displacing the Arawaks, the indigenousmasons, to German engineers, to Italian sylists, to
Amerindian population.English hoteliers, to Swedish masseurs, to French
There is no natural source of fresh water on St Barts,chefs, this list goes on.
therefore no effective agriculture, and while the islandPurely because of its openness to "foreign" workers
was indeed a slave trading port back days and thereSaint Barthelemy has the pick of a pretty good crop. In
were slaves in those dark, there were no sizeableterms of security St Barts is possibly one of the
slave based industries, such as sugar or tobacco. Thesafest places in the world, and this is also easily
attempts at agriculture that were tried were doublyexplained; The community is small, 8000 people on 8
foiled by hurricanes and drought.square miles.
As such, what you end up with is not the typicalIf someone tries to launch a criminal career, they are
Caribbean notion of plantations and manor houses withquickly and easily identified and, how shall we say,
the population split according to their race. Instead youejected. There is also the lack of poverty. Bluntly
have a predominately French people farming as bestspeaking, if you don't have a job, no one will rent you
they can in the countryside, with the English speakingaccommodation, and you are off the island.
Afro-Caribbean population concentrated in Gustavia,As you can see, recreating St Barts would be tough
the capital city. That there was fishing goes withoutjob, and a job that would be made tougher by the fact
saying, and even an amount of piracy, Gustavia beingthat St Barts is evolving. This subject is treated with
a free port and a convenient place to sell your booty.mixed emotions. On the one hand the old world charm
St Barts became Sweden's only colony between 1784of a rustic island is fading, on the other hand the island
and 1878 and this has left its mark on the architecturehas to survive in an ever more competitive world.
and street names in Gustavia as well as continuingThe way to do that is to do what St Barts does best,
cultural links. Because of the link with Sweden, St Bartsby improving quality and not following the crowd.
remains a free port to this day.The days of the Mini-Moke have gone. There are now
From pretty much that time until the 1950s St BartsBMW convertibles, Mercedes and Porsches available
was pretty much forgotten about. Becoming officiallyto rent. No longer dependant on Guadeloupe, St Barts
fully part of the French Republic in 1946, the island wasnow controls its own budgets and there is a frenzy of
dependent on Guadeloupe and passed unnoticed untilwidening and repaving the roads and rebuilding dry
the arrival of the Rockefellers and Rothschilds in thestone walls.
1950s and became a famed and inaccessible retreatWhen people first started visiting St Barts the aircraft
for American high society. This is not a typical historywould make two passes over the grass runway. The
for a Caribbean island.first pass was to clear the goats, the second to land.
Since then the island has purposefully courted theThere were no airport buildings to speak of.
upper end of the tourism market, the reasoning beingYou can fly direct to San Juan, or further, in a state of
pure logic: the island is tiny.the art Pilatus Turboprop.
The bulk of the island remains in the hands of theNow the, albeit tiny, airport meets all modern standards
descendants of the French settlers, simply known asand even has, to the dismay of many, security and
Saint-Barths. At a rough estimate the Saint-Barthsbaggage checks on departure. The Port of Gustavia
make up around half of the population, the other halfhas been completely remodeled and a new Harbor
being mainly metropolitan French with a sprinkling ofMaster's office built. In addition to the classic sailing
other Europeans and surprisingly few year roundyacht regatta, The Saint Barth Bucket, St Barts now
American residents.organizes it's very own open to all comers regatta,
The Saint-Barths are conservative in nature, wary ofLes Voiles de Saint Barth, which is making a mark on
hasty changes and the small size of the communitythe yachting calendar.
makes it almost impossible for a charlatan to make aThe villas, which make up most of the rental
fast buck and disappear. If you want to do business onaccommodation on the island, are being refurbished,
St Barts, people have to know who you are and trustrebuilt and renewed. You no longer have the
you. You live on your reputation.impression that you have stepped into someone else's
St Barts has evolved slowly, in a considered mannerhome, but that this home was made for you.
to where it is today. No amount of planning or projectWhere there was one concierge company on St
managing is going to recreate that overnight. AnotherBarts six years ago, there are now seven. When a
factor to consider when imagining your New St Bartsrestaurant closes a more innovative one springs up in
is that you would have to make it difficult to get to,its place. It may not be your old favorite, but the spirit
which is hardly standard practice in designing aof excellence moves on. So while being the "New St
vacation destination.Barts" would be a tough act to copy, keeping up would
The airport runway is only 2000 feet long, and thebe even harder.