Lyford Cay
Bahamian residential community
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lyford Cay is a private gated community located on the western tip of New Providence island in the Bahamas. Considered one of the world's wealthiest and most exclusive neighbourhoods, it contains approximately 450 homes.[1]
Lyford Cay | |
|---|---|
 Interactive map of Lyford Cay | |
| Coordinates: 25°01′45″N 77°31′20″W | |
| Country |  The Bahamas |
| Island | New Providence |
| Supervisory district | Killarney |
| Time zone | UTC-5 (Eastern (EST)) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC-4 (EDT) |
| Area code | 242 |
| Website | www |
History
The former cay that lent its name to the community is named after Captain William Lyford Jr., a mariner of note in Colonial and Revolutionary times, and is built on a 448-acre (181 ha) grant he received for his services as a Loyalist in the American Revolutionary War. Captain Lyford also received a 92-acre (37 ha) grant on Cat Island for playing a key role in Andrew Deveaux’s raid of April 1783 that drove the Spanish from Nassau.
The Lyford Cay Club was built during the latter part of the 1950s[2] by prominent Canadian businessman Edward Plunkett Taylor, who bought the land in 1954 from Bahamian developer Sir Harold Christie.[3][4][5] In December 1962, U.S. President John F. Kennedy stayed at E. P. Taylor's home in Lyford Cay while he held talks with British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.[6][7]
Cay
Lyford Cay, also called Simms Cay, was a cay a few hundred metres off the north west coast of New Providence Island, 1.4 km long east-west, and up to 200 metres wide. On the map in the 1901 Edward Stanford Atlas it is noted: "The Isthmus at Lyford Cay has grown since 1830, when boats could pass at H.W. It is now 10 ft high & covered with bushes."
Notable residents
- The Bacardi family[8]
- Louis Bacon, U.S. hedge fund manager[9]
- The German-Dutch Brenninkmeijer family[8]
- R. Couri Hay, a Couristan carpet heir and the society editor of Palm Beach magazine and Hamptons magazine[8]
- Viktor Kožený, Czech fugitive financier[10]
- Joe Lewis, British businessman[11][12][13]
Former residents
- Sean Connery, Scottish actor,[14][15][16] Connery died at Lyford Cay in 2020
- Henry Ford II, son of Edsel Ford, grandson of Henry Ford, former president of the Ford Motor Company[8]
- Prince Azamat Guirey, of the ruling family of Crimea[17]
- Stavros Niarchos, Greek shipping magnate[8]
- Peter Nygård, Finnish-Canadian former fashion executive[8]
- Helen Singer Kaplan, Austrian-American-Bahamian sex therapist[18]
- Tony O'Reilly, Irish former media CEO[19]
- Sir John Templeton, American-born British investor and philanthropist[20]
- Arthur Hailey, British-Canadian novelist,[21] author of The Lyford legacy: a history of Lyford Cay from 1788[22][23]
