Qualla: British Colonial Hotel

British Colonial Hotel: Introduction

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brian Gautreau, CC BY-SA 2.0. Sir Harry Oakes bought the hotel on a whim. The story, repeated so often in Nassau that it has acquired the weight of scripture, holds that Oakes -- a Canadian mining magnate who had struck one of the richest gold deposits in North American history -- checked into the Colonial Hotel in 1932, received terrible service, and decided to buy the entire property rather than simply complain. He renamed it the British Colonial Hotel and proceeded to make it the social center of Nassau. Eleven years later, Oakes was found bludgeoned to death in his bed at his nearby estate, his body partially burned, feathers scattered across the scene. The case was never solved. It was called the "murder of the century," and it forever linked the hotel's name with wealth, power, and unsettling mystery.

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Image: Brian Gautreau | CC BY-SA 2.0

British Colonial Hotel: Pirates, Forts, and the Ground Beneath

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NameNotUsed20, CC0. The land under the British Colonial Hotel carries more history than most entire neighborhoods. The first settlement here dates to 1666, when Nassau was still called Charles Town -- a rough, improvised place of taverns and brothels frequented by pirates. Spanish forces attacked re...

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Image: NameNotUsed20 | CC0

British Colonial Hotel: Rising, Burning, Rising Again

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brian Gautreau, CC BY-SA 2.0. Flagler's original Colonial Hotel opened in 1901, an enormous structure designed to draw wealthy Americans southward. But the building's first incarnation did not last. The Bahamian government backed the Munson Line shipping company, which purchased the land and erected a brand-n...

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Image: Brian Gautreau | CC BY-SA 2.0

British Colonial Hotel: A Parade of Names

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brian Gautreau, CC BY-SA 2.0. Few hotels have worn as many brands as the British Colonial. Florida-based Gill Hotels acquired it in 1960. Two years later, Sheraton made it their fourth-ever franchise property, rechristening it the Sheraton British Colonial. That arrangement lasted until 1988, when Best Wester...

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Image: Brian Gautreau | CC BY-SA 2.0

British Colonial Hotel: Bond on the Pier

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brian Gautreau, CC BY-SA 2.0. The British Colonial occupies Nassau's only private beach, and in 1983 that beachfront earned a place in cinema history. The James Bond film Never Say Never Again, starring Sean Connery, used the hotel as a filming location. In one memorable sequence, the villain Fatima Blush -- ...

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Image: Brian Gautreau | CC BY-SA 2.0

British Colonial Hotel: The Grand Dame Endures

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brian Gautreau, CC BY-SA 2.0. The hotel closed temporarily in early 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, reopened in December of that year, then shut again in February 2022 as business and convention travel -- its primary clientele -- remained depressed. It ceased its association with the Hilton brand at that p...

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Image: Brian Gautreau | CC BY-SA 2.0