[imagesource: Financial Times]

In September 2017, the British Virgin Islands were torn apart by Hurrican Irma, and Richard Branson’s Necker Island took a particularly bad beating.

Some before and after pictures show just how extensive the damage was, which left coconuts, palm trees, and entire buildings scattered all over the show.

There was a rainbow after the storm when the island opened following reconstruction, which was fully completed in April 2020, but then the island closed again due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

But Necker is back in business, with Pimm’s and iced tea restocked at the bar, the rooms restored, and lush vegetation replanted.

The Financial Times‘ Carola Long claims to have been one of the first guests since the latest reopening, with her stay coinciding with Branson’s quick jaunt to space.

Yeah, remember that? Branson is not only a business magnate, or a multi-island owner and dweller, but also a space junkie.

If you happen to take up a room on Necker Island – with rates starting at $5 150 per double room per night (around R73 000), including all food, drinks, watersports, and boat transfers – you’ll be gifted a signed copy of his autobiography, so you can read all about it.

Branson enjoys a good brag and even told Long via email that he likes sharing his home (Necker) with guests “who are mulling extraordinary new ideas”:

“From Jack Dorsey, who was dreaming up Twitter and invited us to help by investing, or setting up not-for-profit organisations like The Elders or [The] Audacious [Project] — these were all born out of discussions on Necker Island.”

Other celeb guests who managed a stay were Princess Diana and her children in 1990, Barack and Michelle Obama in 2017, and musicians like Ronnie Wood, Harry Styles, and Mariah Carey, as well as Bill Gates, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Jimmy Carter, and Kate Moss.

Kate Winslet was even there the moment Branson’s mother needed saving after lightning struck and caused a fire. Her disaster movie experience clearly helped in the situation.

Besides the room rate already mentioned, which is available only during “celebration weeks”, you can also rent the whole island out on an exclusive-use basis for up to 40 guests.

This will set you back $105 000 a night, or roughly R1,5 million.

The Great House has 11 rooms, and there are nine villas nestled on the island.

Long reckons the cost makes sense before she described her experience:

The minute I find myself aboard the speedboat Samsam (named after Branson’s son Sam) from Tortola to Necker — drinking champagne to the driver’s Eighties megamix like the star of my own music video — more than a year of Covid restrictions, home schooling and a bureaucratic blizzard of pre-flight forms are a distant memory.

We whizz past an area of islands ringed with yachts and known by locals as “Billionaires’ Playground”, thanks to the tech titans and business moguls who recharge here.

The island, once wholly inhospitable, has been tamed into a “barefoot luxury” amusement park for the super-wealthy.

It has blue water that might as well be Photoshopped, along with some other very Instagrammable settings.

Think selfies with chattering flamingos and scarlet ibis in a giant pond, trained parrots (one being older than Branson), and lemurs that Branson bought to the island after visiting Madagascar:

The island also bills itself as sustainable, with solar panels and three wind turbines providing most of the energy needed to power the island, as well as large tubs of reef-safe sunscreen, solar-powered lamps, and refillable water bottles everywhere.

Never mind the two flights and the private jet required to get there, though.

Necker, despite being in the Caribbean with its own aesthetics and traditional motifs, is decked out in Bali style; with wood, rattan, palm fronds and ad hoc Buddha statues all about:

Not to mention the sushi-filled kayak that can be pushed to a hungry guest while swimming in one of the many pools:

And because billionaires love their extreme sports toys, there’s paddleboarding, catamaran sailing, kitesurfing, water-skiing, and snorkelling available.

For the more chilled guests, there are beachside massages, stargazing from a rooftop hot tub, or sunset yoga available at their disposal.

The Virgin Boss bought Necker in 1979 to “impress a girl” without even knowing about the Virgin Islands.

He paid a fair $180 000 (around R2,5 million), which was substantially marked down from the asking price of $6 million

Estimates now are considered to be much higher, but back in 2006, it was said that the island was worth $60 million.

Yeah, we get it – Branson is good at business.

[source:financialtimes]