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This private residence club on far-flung Ambergris Cay is another large-scale project under way in Turks and Caicos at the moment. Whereas Dellis Cay is all about showcase design, the Sporting Club is focused on offering high-value real estate in an all-natural, totally secluded setting. DPS, the developer who also owns the Snake River Sporting Club in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and the Greenbrier Resort & Club in West Virginia, has big plans for the 1,100-acre island, a twenty-minute flight southeast of Providenciales. There are 550 homesites, many oceanfront, which are being released in parcels, though once purchased, there is no time frame for building the home. (There’s also no annual property tax in TCI, an attractive proposal to many buyers.) The first cluster of fourteen residences, ranging from three- to five-bedrooms, are now complete, and Ambergris Cay welcomed its first founding members on the island last year. A Beach Club, with a pool and restaurant, has also been finished, so that members and their guests can mingle (the residences come with only smaller plunge pools or hot tubs).

In the works are a deepwater marina with yacht facilities, a spa and fitness center, a formal restaurant and an extensive environmental learning center (450 acres of Ambergris Cay are a protected nature reserve). The developers are confident that a these facilities will be completed within the next five years, and when I visited in July, there were indeed hundreds of construction workers busy on the island. As the name implies, the Turks & Caicos Sporting Club will be particularly appealing for adventurous types, who come for the excellent snorkeling, diving and fishing off the island. Thanks to its location, bounded by the shallow Caicos Bank to the west and the Columbus Channel to the east, and in easy proximity to the Atlantic Ocean, Ambergris Cay is a perfect spot for amateur fishermen, and there’s a full-time guide on island to help arrange trips, including bone and deep-sea fishing. Whether you’re on the water or on the island, a big part of the Amergris experience is about bonding with nature in a secluded and breathtaking setting. Case in point: on the wild east shore, members can request to spend the night in four romantically rustic tented camps, on stilts and with incredible views, that are reminiscent of the kinds you’d find in Africa, complete with mosquito net–covered beds. You can’t feel further removed from the Grace Bay Beach hoopla.

As for getting here, you arrive via private jet from Providenciales’ SkyBase airport on the Caribbean’s longest privately owned airstrip, which juts into the turquoise fishing flats (and is often surrounded by reef sharks drawn to the shallow waters). Arriving this way is memorable, scenic and totally exclusive: all that the Turks & Caicos Sporting Club aspires to be when complete.

TIP: Indagare Connoisseur members get special access to the Turks & Caicos Sporting Club. Click on the plus sign above for details.

Sea view or beachfront home sites at the Turks & Caicos Sporting Club are priced between $600,000 to $6 million. Purchasing a plot gives you instant membership to the club. Members can invite family and friends and can also trade weekly vacation shares with members from DPS’s other clubs around the world.