Travel: How a swanky Bahamas resort was brought back to life

I kept thinking Oh Darling and not because my husband languished in a hammock while slurping a Bahama Mama rum cocktail Along pale pink sands on the Bahamian island of Eleuthera we were staying in the Potlatch Club cottage where music icon Paul McCartney and wife Linda honeymooned in March While here the Beatles heartthrob jotted down lyrics to Oh Darling and She Came In Through The Bathroom Window on Potlatch-logo stationary both songs appeared on the Fab Four s final album Abbey Road later that year A walk along the Potlatch Club s beach is a remarkable solitary experience on the island of Eleuthera Photo by Norma Meyer Believe me darlin This chic renovated one-bedroom had been abandoned and buried by the smothering jungle for nearly years In fact the entire original Potlatch Club once a s and s hideaway for elites and celebrities including Greta Garbo Cliff Robertson and Richard Widmark had been swallowed up by nature looted lashed by hurricane winds and long forgotten The grounds of the Potlatch Club include meandering paths and manicured lawns leading to aquamarine seas Photo by Norma Meyer That is until Caribbean-born entrepreneurs Hans Febles and Bruce Loshusan spent almost eight years meticulously raising the decrepit Potlatch from the dead accommodations in whitewashed cottages debuted last summer on gorgeously landscaped acres that feel like your own private oceanfront estate We bought the property not knowing its history Febles revealed And that s a crazy story in itself Queen s Bath is a striking collection of natural warm pools carved by crashing waves along the Atlantic side of Eleuthera Photo by Norma Meyer Eleuthera is a rugged low-key -mile-long twig-thin island with crystalline aqua seas no traffic lights a strip dubbed the narrowest place on Earth one two-lane potholed main road and wondrous skylit caves shielding bats and spirits of shipwrecked Puritans A major happening is Eleuthera s annual pineapple festival when contestants draped in -gallon trash bags frantically try to devour a strung pineapple as fast as they can The island s or so largely empty pristine beaches are gaspingly beautiful and just a -minute flight from Miami Tourists can snorkel and book fishing trips however because it s so relaxed the island s candid slogan is Eleuthera it s not for everyone In a trio of moneyed New York socialites opened the Potlatch Club after building homes and cottages on what had been a pineapple plantation They did so at the urging of a friend Elizabeth Taylor not the actress who went to golf in Eleuthera and decided a plethora of posh pals needed a discreet tropical resort The three Potlatch owners included two former debutantes and Junior Leaguers Diana Adams then married to a top-drawer tax attorney and divorcee Marie Driggs whose son Tony became Potlatch s tennis pro on the cork-turf court Joining them was Driggs partner Elizabeth Fitzgerald an outstanding pianist who studied the ivories in Paris The Potlatch was an invitation-only retreat with thatched tiki umbrellas poolside and rooms filled with classy European antiques such as an oak wainscot chair dated Since guests were invited a large number of didn t feel the need to pay anything A renovated clubhouse serves as the main lobby for the Potlatch Club hotel on the island of Eleuthera Photo by Norma Meyer In the new Potlatch lobby black-and-white checkered tiles remain where they were a century ago Photo by Norma Meyer At the new Potlatch Paul McCartney s honeymoon cottage had to be rebuilt after being trampled by the jungle for decades Photo by Norma Meyer The Sand Bar pavilion next to one of two Potlatch swimming pools serves up kiwi tequila drinks and other refreshments Photo by Norma Meyer The Potlatch s dramatic and excellent Fig Tree restaurant is accented by huge hanging lamps created by weavers in a Morocco shelter for abused women Photo by Norma Meyer Historic Governor s Harbour is the capital of Eleuthera and the island s biggest town Photo by Norma Meyer Show Caption of A renovated clubhouse serves as the main lobby for the Potlatch Club hotel on the island of Eleuthera Photo by Norma Meyer Expand Soon after Febles and Loshusan broke ground in Driggs late son Tony shared the piecemeal heyday history and specific visitor names with the new owners who had no clue Among the VIPs Prince Charles Lord Mountbatten Broadway legend Mary Martin actor Raymond Burr actress and Post Cereals heiress Dina Merrill Even he stated Ringo The Potlatch cottage where Paul McCartney and wife Linda honeymooned in has gotten a whole new chic look Photo by Norma Meyer There s not a lot of photographs or paperwork on who stayed because they needed privacy announced Febles who lives on-site I did find a bill for Walter Cronkite and Merv Griffin With draining funds the socialites sold the furnished Potlatch Club in to a Canadian investor who never opened it as a hotel Sometime in the s the Potlatch plummeted into foreclosure and decades of ruin Then one day Febles and Loshusan were driving with a real estate agent after viewing another realizable hotel venue when they glimpsed the barely visible clubhouse constructed in and part of the bygone Potlatch The area was so overgrown they had no idea the vast lot stretched to the beach There were trees coming up from what had been the pool Febles recalled But in his mind he foresaw his hotel goal Timeless elegance When it went bankrupt and was in probate for a couple years locals used to go there and take whatever they requested Febles reported Surprisingly once the duo purchased the land excited neighbors stopped by to give them Potlatch cups napkins brochures and other items They felt like certainly someone s doing something here One man offered to return the heavy piano he somehow moved from the shuttered Potlatch The damaged piano had long been neglected in his garage and although unusable the baby grand mahogany Bosendorfer graces the new Potlatch s library Prior co-owner Elizabeth Fitzgerald had often played it for guests In a reception area an original restored cabinet now houses tasseled key chains from the earlier Potlatch Club Photo by Norma Meyer A dilapidated wood cabinet rained on for decades was discovered in the ramshackle premises Now restored it holds the original tasseled Potlatch room key chains which Febles located in a stashed box with keys that had Potlatch misspelled I couldn t try a key to see if it worked There were no doors anywhere everyone had taken them The clubhouse still features its black-and-white checkered floor set in sand a section had cratered into the ground but was repaired for Potlatch Eleuthera with the rest of the Bahamas remained a British colony until gaining independence in Which explains why the first Potlatch s general manager wore dressy Scottish kilts supposedly he was hired because of his finesse for playing backgammon and bridge The current GM Bhutan-born Kezang Dorji is a gem who worked as a high-end butler for Keith Richards Christie Brinkley and Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt and exudes his homeland s Gross National Happiness attitude Both Dorji and laid-back Febles are hands-on even toting guests luggage to their quarters In the mornings you might spot shorts-clad Febles picking stray blades from the perfectly manicured green lawns He s often joined by two statuesque wild herons Potlatch co-owner Hans Febles right and general manager Kezang Dorji sit near the original Potlatch s motto La Vita E Bella which means Life Is Beautiful in Italian Photo by Norma Meyer Of the Bahamas islands Eleuthera ranked as the pineapple capital in the mid- th century shipping tons of the tangy fruit to the United States and England After exports bottomed out so did pineapple cultivation there s only about farmers now At Eleuthera s new th annual Pineapple Festival fans of the prickly crop munched pineapple tarts perused pineapple-themed paintings and danced to boisterous bands in a park Sugarloaf pineapples a special sweet variety are grown on the family-owned Eleuthera Pineapple Farm Photo by Norma Meyer This is where it all began this is the place internationally where people bought pineapples from enthused Bekera Taylor who owns a one-acre farm Inside a festival booth she sold Eleuthera s special Sugarloaf variety they re sugary sweet and shaped like a loaf of bread next to homemade pineapple ketchup pineapple barbecue sauce pineapple pepper jelly and pineapple chips She s hoping to launch a pineapple winery Pineapple farmer Bekera Taylor sells her juicy harvest at the th annual Pineapple Festival in Gregory Town on the island of Eleuthera Photo by Norma Meyer Thanks to a stormy shipwreck Eleuthera is also the birthplace of the Bahamas In a group of English Puritans set sail from Bermuda to avoid religious persecution only to smack into Devil s Backbone reef They managed to get ashore name their refuge Eleuthera from the Greek word for free and take shelter in Preacher s Cave where they carved Pulpit Rock for sermons I had the willies in the cave but then it s also an ancient burial ground for the extinct Lucayan people archeologists dug up a shaman s remains a beheaded skeleton and a -year-old tooth The Glass Window Bridge splits the Blight of Eleuthera waters right from the opposite Atlantic Ocean Photo by Norma Meyer Another must-see is the Glass Window Bridge a -foot-wide natural rock formation the narrowest place on Earth topped by a manmade paved bridge no glass Visually striking the calm turquoise Bight of Eleuthera waters lie on one side on the other the churning cobalt Atlantic Potlatch isn t within walking distance of much although the Leon Levy Native Plant Preserve beckoned a block away I fixated on medicinal flora and learned home-brewed tea from horse bush relives chest congestion a bound thatch palm can pull de heat out a de head according to a sign and snakeroot cures intestinal worms Also from Potlatch a -minute stroll on powdery sands brought us to funky beach bar Tippy s the men s restroom door is labeled Bob and covered by Marley s likeness An Eleuthera hangout for years Tippy s beach bar has an peculiar men s restroom door Photo by Norma Meyer One balmy morning about miles from Potlatch we hopped on a five-minute water taxi ride to tiny Harbour Island known as the Nantucket of the Bahamas and luring privileged visitors and multi-million-dollar yachts Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce vacationed there The main mode of transportation golf carts puttered past brightly colored colonial-era homes erected by British Loyalists starting in the s Adhering to a funereal tradition mourners parade down a street on Harbour Island across from Eleuthera Photo by Norma Meyer On a side street a lively brass band paraded with a coffin containing a departed gent as we popped into Vic-Hum Club a -year-old landmark bar totally plastered with memorabilia Co-owner Jay-Jay Percentie an exuberant local councilman justice of the peace and self-anointed Prince of Dunmore the only town on Harbour Island proudly took the world s largest coconut off a shelf