It is midnight and I am swimming outside Mick Jagger's house. That's Mick's house in Mustique, and we're talking a dip in the Caribbean Sea. It doesn't matter that he doesn't know I'm here. It's not important that the lights aren't on and no one's home. Nor that I had to swim a few lengths over from the public beach at L'Ansecoy Bay to get this sideways glimpse of his Japanese-style pad in the moonlight. This is my first time in the Caribbean and it had to be done.
Earlier in the day, I was driven past David Bowie's old house, Mandalay. And then, on my way to L'Ansecoy Bay, it was hard to miss Tommy Hilfiger's overpowering mansion, Palm Beach.
Of course, such rubbernecking would be considered crass in Mustique. The whole point of the place is that it has been offering sanctuary from prying eyes since the 60s when it was the most exotic place on the planet and the exclusive circle moved from house party to house party. Now those who want to live like the rich and famous simply rent a villa here. They are usually the rich and equally famous.
After Colin Tennant, now Lord Glenconner, had spent his personal fortune transforming Mustique from an insect-infested rock in the Grenadines - a "ghastly little island" as his wife Lady Anne once called it - his shrewdest move was, of course, to present a plot of land as a wedding present to his close friend Princess Margaret in 1960. Once she had given the island the royal seal of approval, a cluster of stars soon followed: Jagger, Bowie, Lord Lichfield, Raquel Welch and, er, Roddy Llewellyn. As a child, I remember gawping at the swinging offshore set on a 1970 edition of The World of Whicker. Things didn't get more glamorous than that.
Some celebs were rumoured to have been vetoed from the island. But these days anyone can go. Even Big Brother contestant Paul Clarke, the car designer who boasted that he lived life like an international pop star, could take some of the £30,000 he has reportedly earned hawking his story around the tabloids, and fulfil his fantasy. And he could treat his former TV housemates to a week in the sun while he's at it: Jagger's Stargroves villa sleeps 10 and costs $10,000 a week in the low season. Not including flights, food or domestic help, naturally.
It may sound blasphemous to mention such dim lights as the cast of a reality TV show in the same breath as this mecca for the mega chic, but Brian Alexander (that's the Honourable Brian Alexander), director of the Mustique Company, which now owns and runs the island, is at pains to point out that it is no longer the preserve of the famous. Lord Glenconner has long since sold up. David Bowie flogged his Bali-style mansion to Maxim publisher Felix Dennis. Princess Margaret gave her pile, Les Jolies Eaux, to her son Lord Linley, who sold it to an American couple for £2.5 million, who unsentimentally demolished it to build something bigger and better. "It is not the case that Mustique is only for rock stars and royalty, with ordinary people barred," Alexander has insisted. "People who come here expecting that have often been disappointed, as it is much more rustic than they imagine."
You wouldn't exactly describe the Cotton House, the only hotel on the island, as rustic. Not unless you know of any farmhouse B&Bs that leave a bottle of Laurent Perrier champagne in your room, exotic flowers scattered about the place and a pillow menu (offering a choice of 10) on your bed; not to mention unpacking your suitcase and pressing all the contents on arrival. But the converted 18th-century sugar mill and cotton warehouse underwent a bit of a face-lift two and a half years ago, overseen by Parisian hotelier Grace Leo Andrieu, owner of the Lancaster. Before that Alexander admitted it was "in danger of getting caught in a 70s time warp".
Indeed, there is something reminiscent of 70s TV show Fantasy Island about the place, as the tiny eight-seater plane completes the 45-minute hop from Barbados and deposits you on a single strip shaved out of lush vegetation. From the plane, you walk over to a cute bamboo and thatched airport terminal, where you have your passport stamped, and from there you are delivered to the Cotton House, which looks like a set from a Bond movie - a colonial-style house with a wraparound terrace overlooking grounds with flamboyant trees, frangipanis, hibiscus and palms sweeping down to the beach.
The building was restored and originally converted into a guesthouse for potential property investors by British theatre set designer Oliver Messel, who also designed many of the original villas on the island. These compound the fantasy theme: they are built along Japanese lines or in the spirit of Bali, with names like Moongate, Obsidian and Sleeping Dragon. They are huge affairs, cascading over the hillsides; but they do not dominate the landscape. One of the unexpected pleasures of Mustique is that far from being completely manicured, much of the island's vegetation acts as natural fencing for these palatial homes.
The main roads are surfaced, but there are few cars. People scoot instead between villas on motorbikes or motorised golf buggies known as mules. The fantasy continues in the villagey area of Britannia Bay, where gingerbread buildings house boutiques selling the likes of Ghost and, of course, Tommy Hilfiger, as well as a shop to keep the villa owners supplied with chilled wines and fresh lobster. There's also Basil's Bar and Restaurant jutting out into the bay.
Since its revival under Andrieu, the Cotton House has featured in the Hip Hotels: Escape book. There are 20 light and airy rooms, suites and cottages spread over the estate - mine had a sitting room, bedroom with king-size bed and netting and a huge two-sink marble bathroom. The Great House serves as a living/dining room and bar and is furnished, for the most part, in tasteful rattans and cottons with a polished wooden floor. "Barefoot elegance", the management calls it. The guests tend towards to linen and loafers.
You can limber up with a cocktail - a Mustique Fun, say - on one of the sofas or at the Monkey Bar (every Tuesday night the Mustique Company hosts a cocktail party for guests and villa owners) before taking dinner on the veranda. And the food, prepared by Jean-Jacques Ugé, former chef to the French prime minister, is inventive and very good: pineapple and wild mint soup followed by baked mahi-mahi in a banana leaf papillote flavoured with lime, picky thyme and coconut milk. That sort of thing.
If food seems a major preoccupation, that's because there's precious little else to do on an island that measures three miles by one mile. The Caribbean is, after all, about indulging the senses: eating, sunbathing, sleeping and, of course, snorkelling. You don't exactly go there for the culture.
So a typical day may pan out thus: breakfast on the veranda; take book to Endeavour Beach; accept cooling fruit punch from the beach barman; burn back snorkelling just off the jetty; picnic lunch at Macaroni Beach; sleep off picnic in hammock; accept lift back to hotel from Earl the driver, followed by deeper sleep on down and feather side pillow ("the best in comfort for the side sleeper"); shower and change for snifter; dinner.
Over the week, repeat all of the above, but possibly add a horseride on the beach, a game of tennis, a massage at the beachside spa, dinner at Basil's Bar (best on Wednesday nights, when there is a "jump-up", or dance), and a nightcap at Firefly, the island's very upmarket guesthouse with spectacular sea views. Plus a boat trip to Tobago Cays for more snorkelling.
But while Alexander says it is no longer just for rockers and royalty, we're still talking a couple of thousand pounds for a week in the hotel and £3,000 for a basic villa sleeping four .
It's funny how quickly you start selling yourself a slice of glamour. Jagger's pad at £750 a head per week? I soon pictured myself and my nine best friends sipping cocktails as the sun sets over L'Ansecoy Bay. Just hope we don't get any rubberneckers swimming over from the beach.
Way to go
Caribbean Connection (0870 7519300) offers seven nights at the Cotton House on the island of Mustique. Staying in a Grenadine Cottage on a half-board basis costs from £2,244 per person (until end of October). This includes return economy flights, transfers and accommodation.
Villas: Moana, a two-bedroom villa (based on four sharing) costs from £4,300 per week exc flights and transfers. White Cedars, a four-bedroom villa (based on six sharing) costs from £7,000 per week exc flights and transfers. Call Caribbean Connection for details, or Mustique Villa Rentals in the UK on 01628 583517.
Charter planes: private eight-seater charter with Mustique Airways to Mustique from Barbados costs £772 one way. A shared charter costs £105 per passenger one way.
Flights: upgrade supplement from World Traveller to Club Class with BA (0845 7733377) flying from London Gatwick to Barbados is £1,120pp return.
