ELSEWHERE: Dreaming of Robinson Crusoe

The tiny island of West Caicos of the Caribbean archipelago Turks and Caicos was uninhabited before it caught the attention of British developers. Now they are set to turn it into a top class hotel paradise preserving the unique nature of the island. Even tourists who want to come here will be subject to thorough selection.

David Hartshorn pauses for a moment on a platform six feet above the arid bush of uninhabited West Caicos, staring out across the turquoise sea. "This will be the middle of the hotel lobby."

Not far away, a sea eagle is nursing three eggs in the shadow of a bulldozer, her area cordoned off from the workers who are hewing out a harbor for large yachts. They are careful not to disturb her. That would, in effect, be killing the goose that lays the golden egg.

"What we want this to be," says Hartshorn, a British builder involved in the $700m-$800m development rising on this island, the most westerly in the Turks and Caicos archipelago, "is five star Robinson Crusoe."

The scheme involves the creation of a maritime village based around the artificial harbor with a resort and spa managed by Ritz Carlton, including a boutique hotel of 60 condominiums and cottages (scheduled to open in 2007), as well as three coastal settlements with 120 luxury villas. The entire project is expected to take 10 to 12 years to complete and prices are expected to range from $650,000 for an apartment to $5m-10m for a villa.

"This is one of the last places in the Caribbean where you have a clean sheet," adds Hartshorn, "and we are going to learn from other people's mistakes."

So, for example, less than 12% of the island's 5,500 acres will ever be developed; the rest will be set aside as nature reserves. The only three-story building will be the hotel's whale-watching tower (the creatures pass 300ft from shore during their spring migration); all the others will be low-rise with their roofs hidden by trees. The airport will only take light aircraft because naturalists have warned that jet noise could drive away the flock of 200 flamingos on Lake Catherine. There will be no internal combustion engines, only electric vehicles and possibly horse-drawn carriages. Lighting will be kept to a minimum.

"We're trying to build a community here," says Hartshorn, who came to the Caribbean more than 20 years ago. "We'll probably vet clients and turn down anyone unsuitable. This isn't just offering people a money- making venture. It's about a lifestyle, about something you can pass on to your kids."

Although the development is the most ambitious the Turks and Caicos have seen, it is in fact only the most dramatic manifestation of a remarkable transformation which began about three decades ago but has really taken off in the past few years.

The charms of the eight main and 40 uninhabited islands that comprise the group are clear. The seas are pristine and teeming with exotic fish, turtles and dolphins. The coral reef is the third largest in the world and beyond it the sea bed plummets to a depth of 7,000 feet. The sands are white powder (Grace Bay where Tanya Streeter set a new world record for freestyle diving in 2003 is regularly listed as one of the best in the world) and the weather is near perfect for most of the year.

So far, most development has been on Providenciales, or Provo as it is known, the main tourist island, and beachfront prices now range from about $280,000 for a studio to more than $4m for a villa. Condominiums are common and many are linked to a hotel. Under this system purchasers own their apartment but can opt to put it in a rental pool for hotel guests, which will yield an average annual income of 6-8%. Anyone buying in the islands must pay a one-off land transfer tax of 9.75% plus around 1% in legal fees, but after that there is no annual property tax, income tax on rents or capital gains tax.

Ron Ohlinger was one of the first developers to spot the potential of the Turks and Caicos. In 1986, he came down from Delaware on holiday with his wife and seven children and took the family for a walk on the beach. "We must have walked 10 miles and saw no one," he recalls. "I thought, there's got to be a lot of people like me who love this but who want to have a few comforts as well."

He returned home, sold the 17 stores in his Mr. Goodbuy DIY chain, bought seven acres of Grace Bay beachfront and built the four-star Ocean Club resort and, later, its sister Ocean Club West.

Aside from the natural beauty of the Turks and Caicos, their history was also appealing. Variously under Spanish, French, Jamaican and British control, they came to life commercially in the 17th century supplying salt to passing ships. They were later boosted by George III's decision to grant land there to Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution for production of cotton and sisal (West Caicos has the ruins of a small settlement called Yankee Town complete with a rusty steam engine bearing the words "Manchester 1842"). The decline of cotton and the failure of other ventures saw the population dwindle to a handful (before the current boom on Provo, its population was about 600) but that provided the perfect mix: an uncrowded oasis with a familiar heritage.

"A big attraction was that the islands are part of the Commonwealth and title is backed by the Crown," Ohlinger adds. "They're politically stable and safe. [And] in the States if we hear 'backed by Britain' we feel secure."

Ohlinger opted for a hotel/apartment combination because he thinks it achieves the right balance. "The islands need hotels to bring in the holidaymakers to keep the planes flying; not everyone wants to or can afford to actually buy. But if you get too high a proportion of tourists the place gets overstretched and spoilt."

Over-development remains a risk, however. Provo, for example, now has more than 20,000 full-time residents, and other islands in the chain are poised for similar expansion. In addition to Hartshorn's West Caicos development, North Caicos is getting the five-star Royal Reef resort; Grand Turk, the official and historic capital, is considering widening its harbor to allow large cruise ships; and authorities recently decided to allow the first seven-floor building on Grace Bay - a move that has generated unease.

Former interior designer Judy St. Johnston and her partner Peter Jenkins from London, both in their 60s and retired, have been regular visitors to Turks and Caicos since the early 1990s and bought a one-bedroom apartment on the beach about seven years ago. "It was an amazing, unreal place then. At one time we would be the only ones on the beach and I suppose, selfishly, I liked it when there were fewer people," she says. "But development does mean better restaurants and shops and more to do. The golf now, for example, is fantastic. The local people are certainly more prosperous and seem much happier. And we still see old friends every time we come: all the owners know each other so it's like a club." Come to think of it, she says, "it's still fantastic".

Other advantages of the Turks and Caicos include their proximity to the US (575 miles south-east of Florida), their status as a British Dependent Territory and their use of the US dollar. Recent growth has been further fuelled by an increase in direct flights from several North American cities.

"We've also had some very cold winters in North America, plus the Sars outbreak, plus the virus on cruise ships, plus the Caymans being out of action after the hurricane," says Gary Bauer of Ocean Realty.

"This is boom time for the Turks and Caicos. Capital growth has been between 5 and 8% a year for the last four or five years but it's jumped in the last six months."

Historically, around three quarters of owners on the islands have been Americans (including Bruce Willis and Demi Moore who have a private estate on Parrot Cay) and Canadians. But there has always been a significant British presence, which Bauer expects to increase now that British Airways is running two direct flights from the UK each week and sterling has strengthened against the dollar. "Britons should be flocking here in droves," he explains. "They're effectively buying at half price."

The hotel business is flourishing in the neighboring Florida, too. Implausible may be the best word to describe Fisher Island, Florida's most upmarket address. The enclave is a third of a square mile of landfill in Biscayne Bay that was dredged up in 1905 to make a ship channel for the Port of Miami. It was then traded for a yacht by its developer, Carl Fisher, to an heir to the Vanderbilt fortune, and subsequently owned by a consortium that included Richard Nixon and his pal Bebe Rebozo. Now, it is the locus of one of the greatest concentrations of wealth in the US, just off the coast of Miami, which ranks with Newark, New Jersey, as one of the country's poorest cities.

Recently, development rights for the island were bought by new owners, Fisher Island Investments, which intends to take the property even further upmarket, turning it into another Monaco, albeit without the casinos.

Among the amenities already available are a P.B. Dye-designed, nine-hole, par-35 golf course, two marinas capable of docking yachts in excess of 200 feet, six restaurants, private fire and rescue services, an observatory and a school. Rows of topiary trees line the main boulevard, and the sand on the beaches is imported from the Bahamas. But the island's centerpiece is the Vanderbilt mansion, built in a Spanish Mediterranean style that set the architectural tone for the entire resort. Vanderbilt's private seaplane hanger is now the spa.

Still, the island's new owners are promising upgrades, including new management and facilities for the spa, improved services and a conscious attempt to market to "the rich and famous of the world".

Since the purchase last December, property values have increased, sometimes dramatically, according to Elena Bluntzer, an estate agent who specializes in Fisher Island properties. In fact, she and her husband bought a unit just before the sale and are now fending off offers 30% above the price they paid.

Key to continued growth will be drawing more Europeans to the island, says Cedrik Denain, Fisher Island Investments' chief operating officer. But the weak dollar has made their sales pitch an easy one, and "they were coming to Miami anyway", he explains.

Local real-estate analyst David Dabby agrees, noting that US property prices now seem like "a 50%-off sale for many foreign buyers". And, unlike most of south Florida, where a glut of condominiums could stall growth, Fisher Island remains a safe investment for the super-wealthy.

The island has "the highest concentration of the most expensive luxury condos", and buy-to-flip speculation is less of a problem because most buyers pay in cash and intend to use their holiday homes for the long term.

Miami itself is an attraction thanks to a pleasant climate (apart from hurricane season), good professional and collegiate sports, a plethora of world-class restaurants, a medical centre and an international airport with global connections, argues Ron Shuffield, president of Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell Realtors, a firm specializing in high-end homes. "It is becoming a city of choice for people with money," he explains. "The world is becoming a much more affluent place and the wealthiest of the world are at Fisher Island."

The figures back this up. Of 17 Miami condominiums sold for more than $5m, seven were on Fisher Island; it also lays claim to the most expensive private resale in the state's history - an 8,400 square foot unit at $8.7m.

Unsurprisingly, the relationship between the island's managers and its residents has not always gone smoothly; Dabby describes it as often "contentious".

But Denain says the new owners want to end the friction. One action sure to have generated goodwill was the halting of new unit sales and an increase in prices from $600-$700 per sq ft (lower than some luxury properties on nearby Miami Beach) to $900-$1,000. New residents must also buy an "equity membership" at $175,000; non-residents are allowed in for a $10,000-a-year, non-equity membership; and the 65-unit hotel is open to all.

Still, ambitious marketing and development plans may yet disturb long-time older residents. Aside from the push for more European residents, the new owners also want to attract "younger, hipper and fresher" buyers, Denain says. The median age of residents is 48; the new goal is fewer ageing chief executives, more celebrities and "important people".

Also, construction will pick up again when the winter high season is over. First, the hotel cottages will go under the knife for needed renovations. Next, 206 more units will be built over several years, some in multi-floor blocks but most in townhouses. (Of course, the number could decrease if developers find more buyers like the one who recently bought a 25,000-sq-ft unit in which he wants to install a private bowling alley.)

Fisher Island Investments expects to finish its work in about six years, at which point control of the island will revert to residents. By then, the only remaining development site on the island will be an abandoned tank farm. In these terms, Caicos residents are luckier.

(Based on material from The Financial Times.)