Destination: St. Barth's
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Not enough pleasures in life are guaranteed, and St. Barth’s is as sure to please as fine wine, chocolate and other sensuous epiphanies. Now that the island has gained some independence as an overseas collectivity and elected its longtime mayor Bruno Magras as its first president, there are many new initiatives that will make paradise more reliable. (One example: there should be fewer of the annoying power outages due to infrastructure upgrades.) Also, the luxury ante has been upped as an enterprising group of hoteliers aims to push St. Barth’s into the stratosphere of truly world-class resorts. When I had breakfast with David Matthews, owner of Eden Rock, he was running off to a meeting with Magras to discuss replenishing the sand on St. Jean Beach. As with all edens, long-timers mourn simpler times (see Pico Iyer’s essay in Commentary). You’ll hear minor complaints about how the rush of arriving New Yorkers in winter can cause even the locals to obsess about work, and how living standards have been corrupted by the excess spending of the yacht club. But in the end there are few places in the world where the beautiful somehow seem more lovely or the old feel younger—and in St. Barth’s they do.
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