Qualla: Paradise Island

Paradise Island: Introduction

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Its original name was Hog Island, and for most of its history it looked the part: a narrow, scrubby strip of land across the harbor from Nassau, used mainly for farming and grazing. Then Huntington Hartford arrived in 1959 with a fortune built on A&P supermarkets and a vision borrowed from the French Riviera. He bought the island, renamed it Paradise, and set about constructing a tropical playground so extravagant that he flew in fireworks from the South of France for the opening party and recruited staff from the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes to run his resort. Hartford did not just rename Hog Island. He willed a new identity into existence, and that act of audacious reinvention has defined this 685-acre sliver of the Bahamas ever since.

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Paradise Island: The Heir's Grand Gesture

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Hartford purchased Hog Island from Swedish industrialist Axel Wenner-Gren in 1960 and immediately began erasing every trace of the island's humble past. He hired Palm Beach architect John Volk to design the Ocean Club, Cafe Martinique, Hurricane Hole, and a golf course. He brough...

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Paradise Island: Sold, Resold, Reimagined

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Hartford's paradise attracted gamblers as well as sunbathers. He obtained a gambling license for the island and brought in James M. Crosby as an investor, a connection made through Hartford's bodyguard at the Colony Club in Palm Beach. Crosby and partner Jack Davis formed Resorts...

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Paradise Island: Runway to Fairway

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

For a decade, Paradise Island had its own airport. A seaplane base had served the resort for years, but in 1989 a three-thousand-foot runway was added, bringing STOL-capable de Havilland Dash 7 turboprops operated by Paradise Island Airlines and Grumman Mallard amphibians flown b...

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Paradise Island: Lights, Camera, Paradise

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Hollywood discovered Paradise Island early. The Beatles filmed scenes for Help! here in 1965, the same year Sean Connery shot underwater sequences for the James Bond film Thunderball in the surrounding waters. Casino Royale returned to the island four decades later in 2006. The i...

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Paradise Island: Between Two Bridges

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Paradise Island connects to New Providence by two bridges spanning Nassau Harbour. The first was built in 1966 by Resorts International; the second followed in the late 1990s to handle growing traffic. Standing on either bridge, you look down at water so clear you can count the f...

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