Private Bahamas island of Little Pipe Cay (Knight Frank)
Published by The Real Deal South Florida, December 5, 2021
The private Bahamas island of Little Pipe Cay just hit the market for $100 million, up from $85 million three years ago, according to the Wall Street Journal. It’s part of the 365-island archipelago of Exumas.
The reason: luxury prices are rising in nearby tropical markets such as Miami and Palm Beach, according to Douglas Elliman’s John Gomes, who has the listing along with colleague Fredrik Eklund and Knight Frank’s Edward de Mallet Morgan. It doesn’t hurt that the Bahamas are popular among wealthy foreigners seeking to avoid taxes back home, Gomes said.
The asking price makes it the most expensive public listing for an island in the Bahamas. A total of 75 Bahamian islands are on the market, asking between half a million dollars and $62 million. Most of those are leaseholds, however, whereas Little Pipe Cay is a freehold island, meaning a buyer would actually own the actual property.
The island was built out by businessman and Shipston Group founder Michael Dingman, who in the 1990s gave up his U.S. citizenship for a Bahamian passport, saving him potentially millions of dollars in taxes, according to a 1996 New York Times article. Dingman died in 2017.
Little Pipe Cay now has 22 structures, including a 5,300-square-foot main residence with three bedrooms. They include a separate 8,900-square-foot home meant for entertaining, complete with a dining area, pub, gym and spa. It also has a staff house and four two-bedroom guest cottages. Other buildings include a workshop, laundry facility and an equipment storage building stocked with replacement parts for machinery and appliances. Dingman and his family added a water filtration plant, a freshwater storage system, a power station and an underground power grid.
It cost around $1.5 million a year to operate the island and the family has rented it out for $75,000 per night.
Contact me for additional details about the property and/or if you’re interested in scheduling an appointment to view it.
[WSJ] — Dennis Lynch