On my first afternoon at The Potlatch Club, I swam in the ocean until my fingers pruned and my eyes were rimmed red from salt, emerging from the water like a barnacle that had washed ashore. I collapsed onto a sun lounger, reviving myself with sips of homemade iced ginger tea; just as I felt myself dozing off, a pod of dolphins appeared, splashing in the shallow waters not 10 feet away from shore.
“Look!” I cried out to no one, forgetting that I was alone on the hotel’s seven-mile stretch of pink sand beach. I sat up and watched, mesmerized, as dozens of dolphins frolicked around, clicking and trilling as they chased after schools of iridescent fish.
Is it possible to have a slice of paradise all to yourself? At The Potlatch Club, a reborn midcentury retreat on the rugged Bahamian island of Eleuthera, privacy and seclusion are the very essence of the place. Never mind that the 11-key property is already a magnet for celebrities, British aristocrats, and American oil tycoons who arrive on private jets, or that it’s fast becoming the most sought-after spot on the destination wedding circuit. (While I was there, a Texan couple roamed around wearing matching his-and-hers white blazers, tasting menus, and discussing security measures for dignitaries and heads of state.) Being there, it’s impossible not to slip into your own carefree island routine, moving around the 12-acre estate as though you’re the multi-millionaire who owns the place—even if you happened to leave your private jet at home and arrived, crumpled and sweaty like me, via the bumpy half-hour Pineapple Air flight from Nassau.
For as long as Potlatch has existed, this has been the case. Located on a former pineapple plantation near Governor’s Harbor, Eleuthera’s colorful main port, the original resort was founded in the 1950s by a trio of pearl-wearing New York socialites. The property was run like an invite-only private home: friends would come down for weeks at a time without ever seeing a bill. So, despite the resort’s success and popularity among A-listers including Greta Garbo and Paul McCartney, who honeymooned there with Linda in 1969 and wrote the Beatles song “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window” on hotel stationery, Potlatch was quickly run into the ground.
In 2015, Jamaican-born Bruce Loshusan and his Cuban-born business partner, Hans Febles, stumbled on the then-dilapidated hotel after a prospective hospitality venture on Bahamas’ Berry Islands fell through. They were enchanted by Eleuthera’s wild beauty and lack of development: the long, narrow island, while home to more than 100 beaches, doesn’t have a single traffic light.
They were less rosy about what had become of the legendary Potlatch Club. Decades of abandonment had done a number on the property’s midcentury architecture: the clubhouse slanted sideways, and sunflowers shot up through rotten floorboards. Loshusan and Febles wondered what, if anything, they could salvage.
Then they saw the beach.
“I’ll never forget seeing it for the first time,” recalls Loshusan. “I got goosebumps. I’d never seen a beach so spectacularly romantic in my life.”
It wasn’t long before the duo moved on property and began working with a local architecture firm to preserve as much of the original resort as possible (in the end, four structures were saved) while elaborating a new look and feel for Potlatch 2.0. They kept the clubhouse’s black-and-white floor tiles, revamped an original pool (and added an additional infinity-edged pool with ocean views), and restored a floor-to-ceiling mural painting by the Sri Lankan-born, London-trained architect Ray James Holman Nathaniels. Nassau-based interior designer Amanda Lindroth was brought on to add beachy pops of color and texture to the all-white interiors, incorporating details such as pink coral stone floors, nightstands with mother-of-pearl inlay, teak, and rattan furniture.
A hotel as exclusive as Potlatch depends on top-tier service, and Bhutanese-born general manager Kezang Dorji is more than up for the task, having worked at legendary properties including Mozambique’s Kisawa Sanctuary and served as the personal butler for celebrities including Keith Richards and Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. At Potlatch, Dorji has assembled an all-star staff, tapping former colleagues including executive chef Choki Wangmo (previously of The Cove Eleuthera), whose menu incorporates fresh fish from Spanish Wells and locally-grown produce including watermelon, leafy greens, and, of course, Eleuthera’s famous golden pineapples, which have been cultivated on the island since the 1880s.
A short walk away from the hotel is the Leon Levy Native Plant Preserve, a 30-acre botanical garden home to Bahamian trees and plants like wild sage and milky weed, used by locals as “bush medicine” for more than five centuries. You’re also within striking distance of the lively Tippy s Restaurant and Beachside Bar—an island institution for more than 20 years—and the family-owned Buccaneer Club, whose colorful proprietor, Katherine Johnson, walked away from a fashion career in Italy, dressing celebrities including Prince and Liza Minnelli, to move back to the island.
“This place has a way of calling you home,” she explained.
I could understand. On the bumpy flight back to Nassau, I used the sleeve of my blouse to wipe humidity from the window, craning my head to catch a last glimpse of the island’s pink sands and pineapple farms. Eleuthera had worked its quiet magic on me; returning wasn’t a matter of if, but when.