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Glenconner Beach

Colin Tennant, the debonair London socialite who helped create the Caribbean jet set scene, died Friday on St. Lucia.

Although best known for developing Mustique as the getaway spot for Princess Margaret, David Bowie, Mick Jaggar and his other high society pals, Tennant, more formally known as Lord Glenconner, spent the later part of his life on St. Lucia, where he started buying property in 1982.

A new investment should jumpstart a luxury project on a secluded cove on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia.

The funds from a British consortium headed by A-list developers Anthony Lyons and Gary Wilder will be used for the $100 million renovation of the Jalousie Plantation, one of the island’s revered properties. The new hotel will be rebranded as the Tides Sugar Beach and operated by the Viceroy Hotel Group, owner of The Tides brand.

Oscar de la Renta, Julio Iglesias and Mikhail Baryshnikov are helping to sell property in a sprawling development on the Punta Cana coast of the Dominican Republic.

De La Renta, who was born in the Dominican Republic, reportedly recruited his singing and dancing pals to buy in the Puntacana Resort and Club, a 15,000-acre beachfront development built around two golf courses.

Cuba is the big “what if?” proposition of the Caribbean. Rich with ambiance and natural beauty, it languishes under the communist regime, untouched by the forces of capitalism for almost 50 years.

But there are signs Cuba yearns to enter the international second-home resort competition.

Last week the Cuban government announced a willingness to allow foreign companies to develop resort destinations on the island. There were even hints of permitting the type of long term, high-end residential vacation projects now common in eagerly capitalistic Caribbean destinations.

Only eight houses are left in Shoreline Bahamas, the 76-unit development on Grand Bahama, the developer says.

Launched in 2002, free-standing houses in the development range from 2,610 to 4,560-square-feet, and are priced between $850,000 and $2 million.

While there hasn’t exactly been a flood of buyers in the Caribbean in last two years, there has been a steady stream of activity, according to a project spokeswoman.

One of Antigua’s best known boutique resorts, the Blue Waters Hotel, this week launched sales of eight oceanfront villas--a sign that gun-shy Caribbean developers may be ready to test the market again.  

The "Blue Waters Residences" are being sold under a buy-to-let plan. Owners will be able to use the property for up to two months a year (one month in high season, one month in low season). The resort will rent out the properties for the rest of the year.

An arrest warrant was issued in the U.S. Virgin Islands last week for missing real estate agent Rosemary Sauter-Frett, the owner of the RE/MAX Dream Properties franchise in St. Thomas.

Although it is unclear what charges are pending against Sauter-Frett, clients are trying to recover millions of dollars million in deposits, according to the St. Thomas Source. “Tens of thousands of dollars drawn” on Sauter-Frett’s accounts had bounced in recent weeks, local agents told authorities.

Construction started last month on the super-yacht marina for Christophe Harbour, the 2,500-acre resort and residential development on the southeast peninsula of St. Kitts in the West Indies.

With many projects around the region stalled, any sign of progress on a development is big news. And Christophe Harbour is one of the most ambitious resort and residential developments in the Caribbean, including a Tom Fazio-designed golf course, hotels, restaurants, shops, spa and the usual array of high-end residential properties, in addition to the 300-slip marina with berths to handle yachts up to 300 feet.

International residential purchases on the once-popular islands of Trinidad and Tobago are grinding to a halt in the wake of new regulations, industry executives say.

In 2007, the government enacted a new law requiring foreign buyers on Tobago to acquire a license. Since then, not a single license has been issued.

“The regulators have been very slow to finalize a transparent procedure for obtaining the licenses,” Nicole Ferreira-Aaron, a partner at Hamel-Smith & Co, a law firm based in Port of Spain, told Property Wire.

In a normal world this wouldn’t be news. But these days it seems worth mentioning that a condo and marina development on St. Maarten is opening this month, as planned.

Well, maybe not exactly as planned. The web site for Porto Cupecoy says the project will be completed in summer of 2009. But perhaps that’s quibbling. The project, developed by Orient-Express Hotels Ltd., will officially open next month, bucking the tide of delays and cancellations in the Caribbean.