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Is Jamaica back? With the reopening of James Bond creator Ian Fleming's famous villa, Goldeneye, as a luxury resort and real estate enclave, Jamaica has the potential to get back onto the Caribbean's A-list of second home destinations. At the same time, the very recent sale of the venerable Half Moon resort community to Colorado ski powerhouse Vail Resorts, the suddenly expanded development of the previously pristine Southwest coast, and the offering of beachfront lots at Goldeneye's sibling boutique resort, Jake's, speaks to a Jamaican renaissance.

In recent years, high crime rates and horror stories out of the capital, Kingston, scared off many potential tourists and buyers. But thing have improved dramatically, and these days there is ample non-stop air service from the States into the international airport in Montego Bay, leaving no reason to fly into Kingston at all. Montego Bay is also much more convenient to the many second homes in that city, Ocho Rios and Negril. The atmosphere right now hearkens back to the post-war 1950s when Jamaica was the Caribbean's in-place for movers and shakers, with an influx of British and American buyers, especially celebrities like Katherine Hepburn, Noel Coward and Fleming, who penned all of his 14 best-selling James Bond novels at his Goldeneye villa here.

Jamaica has no bigger champion than Chris Blackwell, Reggae impresario and the founder of Island Records, the label that made an international mega-star out of local hero Bob Marley. Blackwell has long been involved in every aspect of tourism and economic promotion here, including his Reggae Xplosion, the Caribbean's answer to the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and the Experience Music Project in Seattle, a high-tech interactive museum of all things reggae. Blackwell also founded Island Outpost, a "chain" of boutique hotels throughout Jamaica which evokes the former British Colonial charm with unusually attentive service, afternoon tea and high style at very turn. Blackwell's emphasis at these properties, including The Caves, Jake's and Strawberry Hill, has been on creating a special "sense of place." It was Blackwell who purchased Goldeneye and recently shuttered it for a dramatic two-year top to bottom renovations and expansion, reopening it just this past fall. Besides a greatly enhanced main villa, where guests can write postcards at the same desk where Fleming created his superspy adventures, second homes are now part of the mix. The 52-acre beachfront property is just outside Ocho Rios, and features 12 new villas, luxury real estate at its best, all on the beach or lagoon, which allow buyers the option of putting them into the boutique resort's rental pool, managed by the hotel staff, to generate income when not in use by the owners. Sales have been very brisk, and of the new villas, priced from $900,000-$1.2 million, only three remain unsold, all on the resort's private beach. They are all one-bedroom units that sleep four and have full kitchens featuring high-end Italian appliances. The remaining units are all around $1.1 million and come fully furnished, with upscale electronics and flat screen televisions, plus a veranda, large porch and extensive outdoor living spaces with an open air shower and private garden, all just steps from the Caribbean Sea.

The Ian Fleming tie in offers buyers a taste of a lifestyle James Bond himself would undoubtedly approve of, combining one of a kind history with first-rate food and service, a brand new onsite spa, and the relaxed good life Jamaica is famous for.
www.goldeneye.com