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| Profile |
Almost Paradise
Elizabeth Harris
06/01/2007
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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.
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