Qualla: Les Jolies Eaux

Les Jolies Eaux: Introduction

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

When Colin Tennant offered Princess Margaret a wedding present in 1959, he gave her a choice: a wrapped gift or land on Mustique. She chose the land. It was the only property she would ever own -- ten acres on a headland at the southern tip of a 1,400-acre Caribbean island, overlooking both the Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea. The catch was that the land was a former sugar plantation, overgrown and eroded, with a wall of vegetation blocking any sight of the water. Eight years passed before Margaret began building. The villa that emerged, Les Jolies Eaux -- "Beautiful Waters" in French -- would become the most famous private house in the Grenadines, a stage for royal escapism that ended in tabloid scandal and a family sale that reportedly left the princess heartbroken.

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Les Jolies Eaux: A Set Designer's Caribbean Vision

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Oliver Messel was not an obvious choice to design a royal villa. He was a theatrical set designer -- one of Britain's most celebrated -- and uncle to Princess Margaret's husband, Lord Snowdon. But Messel had relocated permanently to the Caribbean due to health issues that prevent...

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Les Jolies Eaux: Tiles, Bamboo, and a Queen's Portrait

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Inside Les Jolies Eaux, Messel's theatrical instincts showed in every detail. Decorative Caribbean ceramic tiles covered the floors, contrasting with bamboo furniture that Margaret imported from London -- a deliberate collision of tropical craft and metropolitan taste. Down throu...

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Les Jolies Eaux: Paradise and Paparazzi

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Margaret visited Les Jolies Eaux regularly, entertaining a rotating cast of aristocratic and Hollywood friends. It was here, through the Tennants, that she met Roddy Llewellyn, a landscape gardener 17 years her junior. Their affair, which began at the villa, became tabloid dynami...

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Les Jolies Eaux: Sold, Rented, and Recreated on Screen

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 1996, Margaret gave Les Jolies Eaux to her son, David Linley, as a wedding gift -- echoing the gesture that had brought the property into the family in the first place. Linley sold the villa in 1999 for a reported 2.4 million pounds, a decision that reportedly distressed his m...

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