Profile
Almost Paradise
Elizabeth Harris
06/01/2007

When Jeremiah Gumbs brought his pregnant wife and three children from New Jersey to Anguilla in 1956 to introduce them to his Caribbean birthplace, the trip required propeller planes and sailboats. Anguilla lacked an airport, and tourism was, literally and figuratively, a foreign concept. But when the Gumbs family finally arrived, they enjoyed white, pristine beaches, nearly rain-free weather and the laid-back island ethos. Jeremiah’s wife, Lydia, imagined others wanting the same experience and encouraged her husband to buy land with the idea of creating what would become the island’s first vacation getaway. Over the course of nearly five decades, the Gumbs family pieced together 60 acres of beachfront land and built a resort and oceanfront lodging that now comprise the Rendezvous Bay Hotel & Villas.

JEREMIAH AND Lydia Gumbs, with children Alan, left, Clyde and Una, opened the Rendezvous in 1962. The children are now revamping the resort.

Today Clyde Gumbs marvels at his mother’s foresight—and ignorance. Building the resort posed an enormous challenge because it required importing construction materials and relied on manual labor, even the family’s help. Workers dug cisterns with picks and shovels, mixed cement on plywood and dug foundations by hand, Clyde recalls. Even after completion, the hotel failed to produce substantial profits, he says—and it still doesn’t. "There was no central power, it was all self-contained. You turned off the generator at 9 o’clock; after that, if you were going to read, you had to use a kerosene lamp," Clyde says. "I preferred it then. The people who came, for the most part, liked it; they weren’t looking for the typical experience of going into a tourist trap."

Now, however, Anguilla is awash in luxury resorts, and the Gumbs family is rushing to catch up with the booming tourist industry. During last winter’s high season, visitors could book a room at Rendezvous Bay for as little as $140 a night. While the Gumbs’ hotel benefits from the island’s increased popularity and retains a following of repeat guests, the family realizes that they must upgrade, particularly portions of the resort that date back to the 1960s and that Clyde calls "deficient." Jeremiah, who stayed involved in the hotel into his late 80s, never relished the thought of a reconstruction project. But when he died in 2004, at the age of 91, Clyde, his brother Alan, who manages the hotel, and their siblings began to see opportunity.

"People approached us a lot over the years about doing something," Clyde says. "After our father passed away, I still wasn’t really that inclined to do much, but it forced us to seriously look at what we were going to do. We were going to have to do something; we needed to replace the facilities."

All too aware of the challenges of a large-scale construction project, Clyde and his siblings considered all their options. Developers and hotel chains offered to buy the property outright or develop it in partnership with the family. But the siblings rejected these offers in favor of preserving the family legacy and the atmosphere their parents created. "It wasn’t us," Clyde says.

Family Roots
Jeremiah Gumbs was born in Anguilla in 1913. He started school there, but as his family’s financial needs mounted, his mother, who had eight children, required his help. He worked in Caribbean cane fields, dockyards and oil refineries before returning to Anguilla, where he became a master fisherman, barber and tailor. He left the island again in 1938 to live with his sister in Brooklyn, and he attended the City College of New York on a scholarship. He planned to study dentistry, but his permanent resident status made him eligible for military service, and the Army drafted him during World War II.

Gumbs married Lydia Gibbs of Perth Amboy, N.J., in 1944 and worked with her father in his coal and ice business. The GI Bill paid for him to learn to install furnaces, and he later founded Gumbs Fuels. The couple had four children: Alan, Clyde, Duane and a daughter, Una. Jeremiah did not return to Anguilla until the mid-1950s, when the Gumbs acquired about 30 acres of land there and began to work on their resort. They opened for business in 1962 with five rooms.

In the late 1960s, Jeremiah became an advocate for Anguillan independence from British colonial rule, and he served as the island’s UN ambassador during the Anguillan revolution of 1967 to 1969. During the freedom movement, the hotel became a hub for organizing the resistance. In 1967, Jeremiah represented Anguillans opposing a British plan to create an associated state (St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla) aligned with Britain. The population widely supported independence, but Britain acknowledged neither Jeremiah’s leadership of the secessionist campaign nor popular opinion. Ultimately, a UN subcommittee on colonialism allowed Jeremiah’s petition to be heard. "After 300 years of neglect as a British colony, the people feel they are able to take care of their own affairs," he explained. In 1980, Anguilla became a self-governing British dependent; today it has a population of 13,500.

Jeremiah helped found the Anguilla Improvement Association to raise money to fund hurricane relief, support the hospital and establish a library and secondary education on the island. Lydia, who had been vice president of the New Jersey PTA and a member of the state hospital board, designed the original Anguillan flag, with its three dolphins, and served in more than a dozen local groups, including as founder and president of the Anguilla Mental Health Association.

Rendez-New
The family’s history in Anguilla helps facilitate their plans for redeveloping the resort without outside investors. Clyde, whom his siblings chose to manage the project, finds himself in the position his parents occupied nearly 50 years ago. On an island where the highway is named for Jeremiah and where local politicians are encouraging Anguillans to develop their homeland in the stead of foreign profiteers, the Gumbs have avoided bureaucratic red tape so far. Materials that typically take a week to pass through customs often arrive at the Rendezvous Bay in two days, Clyde says. This streamlines an ambitious project that Clyde plans to complete by December 2009.

The initial stages of the new Rendezvous call for a spa and 180 villas and residences ranging in size from one to four bedrooms, designed by architect Peter Marino. The Gumbs intend to sell the four- and five-bedroom villas on the beach starting at $15 million. One-bedroom suites will open at $2 million. The family will retain a percentage of the lodging for rentals. The Gumbs are selecting an operator to manage the resort and rental property, which will still lack amenities such as golf and yacht moorings. Guests can golf elsewhere on the island, the family says, and they hope to preserve the bay’s openness, rather than build docks.

Clyde estimates the project will cost several hundred million dollars. Financing will flow from the sale of property that will first become available this summer. Prospective buyers can put down a deposit ranging from $10,000 to $100,000 for a property to ensure priority when they go on the market. "It’s our place—it’s our legacy," Gumbs says. "What we have at stake is more than just money."

Elizabeth Harris is a staff writer for Worth.