Attracting as many celebrities as nicknames, Harbour Island, the “Nantucket of the Caribbean,” or Briland as locals call it, has managed to maintain an essence of barefoot luxury (and lack of paparazzi) despite the likes of India Hicks and Uma Thurman owning homes on the 3.5-mile-long enclave off Eleuthera, in The Bahamas.

Luring everyone from the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to Helmut Newton, Mick Jagger, and, more recently, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, the pastel clapboard homes and New England-style architecture are as much a draw as the powdery pink beaches and thriving barrier reef—the third-longest in the world.

In the late 1960s, actor Brett King—who filmed alongside John Wayne and Bette Davis—and his wife, Sharon, followed the lead of rock stars and royalty to Harbour Island, trading Hollywood for a hotel and founding Coral Sands Inn & Cottages on a covetable stretch of the hallmark pink shores. When AJ Capital Partners—the firm behind such unique properties as Rusacks St Andrews in the U.K. and Common House in New Orleans —acquired the property nearly a half-century later, it was tasked with re-envisioning an institution without losing its perennial charm.

“When we were designing Coral Sands, it was less about creating something new and more about recalling its original spirit through the lens of Harbour Island itself,” Krissy Melendez, head of design at AJ Capital Partners, tells Galerie. “It stands as a tribute to Brett and Sharon King, whose love story brought them here, and to the unhurried sun-drenched world once captured by renowned photographer Slim Aarons.”

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