The iconic mountaintop property in St. Barts that was once home to the legendary Les Castres hotel and restaurant, which hosted the likes of Jackie O, Richard Nixon, Mikhail Baryshnikov, David Bowie and Liza Minnelli, was quietly put up for sale 18 months ago. New revelations on the island reveal that the new “Queen of the Mountain” is Laurie-Lynn Stark, co-founder of Hollywood’s popular goth-rock fashion brand, Chrome Hearts.
High society author Michael Gross reveals in his latest book, Treasure Island: The Story of St. Barths…and its Barbarians, Billionaires and Beauties, published by Harper, that the fashion maven acquired the three-acre property atop Luling, the A-list island’s highest mountain, not by buying the land itself, but by buying the company that owned it.
The sale was done in secret behind a series of NDAs, Gross reported.
The asking price was a low $37.7 million.
We reached out to a representative for Chrome Hearts, who said the broker was Zarek Honeysett of Shivers Real Estate, who also would not comment on the sale.
Built by a German shipping heir, Les Castres’ next owner was a Wall Street arbitrator who gave the option in 1992 to buy the place to Pino Luongo, the Tuscan restaurateur behind Il Cantinori and Le Madri in New York and Sapore di Mare in the Hamptons.
Then, in 1995, Hurricane Lewis destroyed the place and Luongo left.
After years of battles with his insurance company, his first wife and his French manager, Wall Streeter sold the devastated property to David Bradley, the billionaire owner of The Atlantic magazine and Washington, D.C., for $5 million, Gross reported.
But when neighbors blocked his construction plans, he turned it over to Ferit Shahenk, owner of another island hotel, the Eden Roc, aka England’s Matthews family (scion James is married to Pippa Middleton) and one of Turkey’s richest men, and tripled his money.
Stark, who owns several properties on St. Barths, also did not respond to me, but Gross said plans have been submitted for three luxury villas atop her mountain.
Mr Gross’s book is also available in the UK today.
