#11 - Private Islands
Emerald Cay, Turks & Caicos
Price: $75,000,000
Stuff rich people love includes private islands and the cache this affords them among their colleagues. This is typically not because they are reclusive, although Howard Hughes comes to mind, it is their disdain for the classes beneath them that fuels a desire for opulent solitude. The exclusivity of a private island provides a reprieve from the riff raff that they tolerate on a day-to-day basis; this naturally does not include the maids, cooks, drivers or concierge services.
Private islands separate the rich from commoners, locals and tourists at their preferred Caribbean destination. Nothing dampens a life of luxury and 24 hour a day pampering than having to step over woebegone partiers that still excrete rum from the prior evening at the Aura nightclub.
If you have the means to partake in the luxury of a private island, you can enjoy a 30,000 sq. ft. mansion which boasts 10 elegant bedrooms, 2 guest quarters, 40 foot high living room ceiling, 3 floor library, home theatre, wine cellar, infinity edge pools, turtle pool bar and first class marina. Should you require a trip to the mainland…use the private swing bridge.
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Stuff Rich People Love 
All that is missing is my New Flying Sports Car… It’s beautiful and fast… 300 MPH and you can drive it home and put it in your garage… Enjoy!
By the way the listing for that island has changed their price, probably due to the stock market crash. Its now $48 million and some change
@ moi – it’s ludicrous to say that “most of the super-rich either married it or inherited it”. You have NO idea what you’re talking about. Most really rich people worked extraordinarily hard to get where they are – just because a few of them have been devious or dishonest, doesn’t give anyone the right to generalize.
I’m not so sure it’s simply disdain. Could it not be that they like to have some privacy and once they become famous, they have nothing. We’ll always have the rich and the poor and no matter how jealous the poor are, the rich made their money. Fair and Square. Many of them easily but most of them worked damned hard while everyone else was lolling about doing nothing. What say you?
well… there are those who earned it and those who live off the spoils of previous generations.
Actually, most of the super-rich either married into it or inherited it. Or gained it through corrupt and questionable business tactics. As far as implying that those who can’t afford a private island are “lolling about doing nothing”, maybe you should take a gander at why you’re lolling around defending wealth disparity on a blog?
“once they become famous, they have nothing” ?
“No matter how jealous the poor are.” ?
“the rich made their money. Fair and Square” ?
“Most really rich people worked extraordinarily hard to get where they are” ?
“while everyone else was lolling about doing nothing” ? (I’ve never heard of a factory owner making money while the workers that he paid 30 cents a day lolled about and did nothing)
Jacoba, what color is the sky in your world?
I’d also like to add, regarding your views on the nature of hard work vs. inheritance. Actually, in pretty much all cases, most seed money has to be made by previous generations. Then, if the children, and their children’s children invest their money well (which they have experts do for them) then they become “really rich.” The Hilton family for example, has been in the hotel business for most of the 20th century, and most of the fortune that exists today was made possible by the upper class status that Conrad Hilton enjoyed because of HIS parents. Lots of people COULD have done what Bill Gates did; but at the time he first started developing windows, do you know how many 13 year olds, or even college students for that matter, had access to a computer necessary to do what he did back in the 70s? The answer is 1: BILL GATES. And if you think Bill Gate’s fortune is a “Rags to riches” story, you clearly don’t know his father. When it came to creating opportunities, meeting the right investors in the right places, and getting access to the necessary equipment (something that, in the technology age, we forget required a lot of money to do back when Gates was getting started), it didn’t hurt that the name on the building of one of the country’s most prestigious law firms belonged to Bill Gates’s daddy. Keep in mind, I’m not attempting to slander Bill Gates, these are things that HE will tell you himself if you ask him what made him so successful. You forget about the abundance of luck that permeates the life stories of all of America’s wealthiest and most successful entrepreneurs, to advocate rewarding the rich for being that lucky, is to advocate punishing the poor for being unlucky, and we do that en-mass almost constantly in this country. If you’re rich, you don’t need to work EXTRAORDINARILY hard to be successful, and if you’re poor, working extraordinarily hard only helps you to barely get by and survive on a day to day basis, no one can “get ahead” under conditions like that. You don’t talk about luck at all, and that is a FUNDAMENTAL element of the debate about income inequality.
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