On Harbour Island, Embracing the Slow Drift of Change
Condé Nast Traveler
By Adam Sachs
Though they've evolved over the years—but only a little—the twin Bahamian sanctuaries of Harbour Island and Eleuthera are still perfect for spending languid days in high style.
My family and I were ensconced in an ocean-facing cottage at Coral Sands Inn & Cottages for a few sweet, languorous days. From our canopied bed we watched the coruscating light play across the rippling Atlantic. We wrapped ourselves in periwinkle-and-blush-striped bathrobes and ventured only as far as our deck's rattan loungers. To read but mostly to be distracted by the view: a green thicket of bay cedar and sea grape on the dunes giving way to a rose-tinted beach and, beyond, endless shifting blues of ocean and sky.
The air-conditioning was glacial, as was the pace of our days. I found a coffee-table book titled The Shell: 500 Million Years of Inspired Design that was just my speed. (“From the beginning of time, the shell and its animal builder have played an important role in the life of man.”)
The charming resort was built in the late 1960s by Brett King (an actor who is said to have dated Elizabeth Taylor) and his wife, Sharon. It has just been thoughtfully overhauled by new owners. The renovation leans exuberantly into the island palette and its themes: painted grasscloth walls, straw-fringed table lamps and pendants made of white shells, coral-tinted soaking tubs, nautilus-shell-encrusted mirrors, and showers enveloped in turquoise tiles. It's a lot, but it works.
Of course, we did venture out, if reluctantly. There was tennis to play (on the hotel's striking bubble-gum pink and azure blue courts), conch fritters to lunch on at the nearby Beach Bar, and a family of glossy black chickens who hopped onto our deck to say hello to.