Moon Author's Review
Sheer wealth is readily apparent everywhere east of Port Antonio along the coast, sometimes to an astonishing degree; however, the town’s over-the-top grandeur has been fading for decades, leaving in its place potholed roads, dilapidated historical sites, and an increasingly desperate dependence on a barely trickling tourism trade. Some of the most beautiful real estate in Jamaica--and perhaps in the entire world--can be found in the vicinity, much of it overgrown and conspicuously neglected. The restaurant and bar on Navy Island, a two-hectare piece of land that protects Port Antonio’s West Harbour, has trees growing up through the rotting floorboards with little remaining to remind visitors of the parish’s more glamorous days. Efforts to return Navy Island to its former glory have apparently lost steam. Similarly, the restaurant at Blue Hole, or Blue Lagoon, as it was popularized in the movie of the same name, was closed from 2003 to 2007. Michael Lee Chin, one of Jamaica’s wealthiest businessmen, recently took control of the land on the western shores of the Lagoon, in addition to buying Trident Castle and the Trident Hotel from Earl Levy, but planned refurbishments at both properties have yet to materialize.
Many residents ask themselves why this unique and marketable natural treasure has been so poorly managed. Some blame the area’s remoteness, exacerbated by winding, potholed roads, and say the new North Coast Highway, which incidentally stops at Port Antonio’s town limits, is key to turning the area around. Some blame Jamaica’s promotional institutions like the Jamaica Tourism Board or the Urban Development Corporation for mishandling resources and retarding the development process; still others blame the elite villa owners, many of them absent much of the year to return for brief spells when they prefer the quiet, old world character of the land, free from masses of transient tourists and preserved in time as a result.
Despite the seemingly stagnant pace of development, efforts have been made and are under way to return Port Antonio to its former glory and jump-start the economy of what should be one of the Caribbean’s most popular, exclusive tourist destinations. The new Errol Flynn Marina on the West Harbour in the heart of Port Antonio was inaugurated in 2004 and has world-class facilities, low docking fees, as well as a new Russian-Eurasian restaurant. Never mind that the aforementioned Navy Island development was slated for inclusion in the Marina project before funds disappeared. Other recent developments have seen Butch Stewart, who owns the Sandals and Beaches all-inclusive resorts, buy Dragon Bay, formerly one of the area’s top resorts (made famous as a set for the movie Cocktail). Stewart is apparently waiting on the government, or some sign from God, to reopen the property as an ultra-luxury all-inclusive.
What is certain is that the present trickle of visitors who come through Port Antonio do not constitute a strong enough driving force to support a healthy economy, leaving crumbling Folly Mansion, its enormous structure built in the Roaring Twenties with a cement-salt water mix, an ironic symbol of stagnation. But few who visit can help but comment on the area’s tremendous natural beauty. Secluded white-sand beaches, extravagant villas, plentiful rivers, and strikingly unique topography where the hills fall gently to the sea make Port Antonio and the northeast coast an immediate favorite.
The reality is that any hope of a new economic boom may have faded, despite the memory of Portland as the Caribbean’s first tourist destination as a result of the banana trade in the early 19th century. Port Antonio saw a brief comeback in the 1960s and 1970s when it became the playground of choice for the rich and famous from around the world, many of whom left grand mansions seemingly transplanted from old world Europe to the lush green hills of Portland. These past luminaries include the film star Errol Flynn, who left an important legacy in Port Antonio when he died in 1959. Many of Flynn’s former properties lie in ruins today.
