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Little Saint James, U.S. Virgin Islands

Coordinates: 18°18′0″N 64°49′30″W / 18.30000°N 64.82500°W / 18.30000; -64.82500
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"Epstein Island" redirects here. For the nearby island also formerly owned by Jeffrey Epstein, see Great Saint James, U.S. Virgin Islands.

Little Saint James
Nickname: Epstein Island
Little Saint James is located in the U.S. Virgin Islands
Little Saint James
Little Saint James
Location in the Caribbean
Little Saint James is located in Caribbean
Little Saint James
Little Saint James
Little Saint James (Caribbean)
Geography
LocationCaribbean Sea
Coordinates18°18′0″N 64°49′30″W / 18.30000°N 64.82500°W / 18.30000; -64.82500
ArchipelagoVirgin Islands archipelago
Administration
 United States
Territory United States Virgin Islands
Area covered0.28–0.32 km2 (0.11–0.12 sq mi)
Little Saint James is the smaller of the two islands in the southeast of nr. 2 of Saint Thomas

Little Saint James is a small private island in the United States Virgin Islands, southeast of Saint Thomas. It was owned by American financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein from 1998 until his death in 2019.[1][2] Due to Epstein's years of ownership, and especially its use as a base of operations for underage sex trafficking, the island is most often nicknamed Epstein Island.

Geography

Main article: Geography of the United States Virgin Islands
Map of Little Saint James

Little Saint James is a small island (or islet)[3] with an area of 70 to 78 acres (28 to 32 ha). It is in the United States Virgin Islands,[1] located southeast of neighboring Great Saint James, both off the southern coast of the larger St. Thomas island[4][5] and belonging to the subdistrict East End, St. Thomas.

The Virgin Islands are mountain peaks rising from the Caribbean ocean floor.[6] The trade winds (prevailing east-to-west winds near Earth's equator) dominate its climate and local weather, with stronger winds and less rain during winter.[7]

Ownership

Little Saint James Island in the Virgin Islands, while owned by Jeffrey Epstein

Little Saint James is a private island. In 1997, Little St. James was owned by venture capitalist Arch Cummin and was for sale for $10.5 million.[8] In April 1998, a company called L.S.J. LLC purchased the island for $7.95 million, and documents showed that Jeffrey Epstein was the sole member of L.S.J.[9][10][11][12] In 2019, the island was valued at $63,874,223.[13] The island was Epstein's primary residence,[4][14] and he called the island "Little St. Jeff".[1][2] The main house on the island was renovated by Edward Tuttle, a designer of the Aman Resorts.[1] In 2008, Epstein's estate on Little Saint James had 70 staff.[10][15] According to a former staffer, Epstein insisted on discretion and confidentiality from his employees.[12]

In his will and testament (a 21-page pour-over will) signed just two days before his death,[16] all of Epstein's holdings were transferred into the "1953 Trust",[17] named after the year of his birth.

In March 2022, Little Saint James and the neighboring Great Saint James were listed at $125 million. A lawyer for Epstein's estate stated that the money obtained from the sale would be used to settle a number of lawsuits. Bespoke Real Estate, the agency jointly overseeing the sale, stated that further information on the listing was only available to prospective buyers.[18][19]

In May 2023, billionaire Stephen Deckoff, under his firm SD Investments, announced the acquisition of the Great St. James and Little St. James islands for $60 million.[20]

Buildings

In 1997, the island had a main house, three guest cottages, a caretaker's cottage, a private desalination system, a helipad, and a dock.[8]

Main House

Edward Tuttle’s architecture practice designed the renovation of the main house on the island, often described as a compound.[21][22] The renovation concluded sometime after March 2003[23] and the colonnaded villa-style house is where guests stayed while visiting the island.[24]

Epstein’s Cabana

Epstein's personal residence on the island was a stone-walled cabana with a turquoise ceiling, one of many cabanas on the island.[24]

The Temple

Exterior

There is a blue-striped, boxlike building at the South-West point of the island. The structure was initially topped by a golden dome, which Google Earth satellite images suggest was added between July 2013 and March 2014. Aerial footage from March 2015 shows the dome and two large, golden, avian-like statues atop the building, along with two sculptures out front.[25] Locals say the dome was blown away during Hurricane Maria in 2017.[26][27]

The purpose of the construction is unclear and it deviates in substantial ways from the plans for the music pavilion that had been submitted for approval in 2010 by Epstein's architects.[26] The original building in the plans was of an octagonal footprint, rectangular in cross-section, and had two side rooms extending from the outside walls. It was also much lower in perspective, and the dome extended from the octagon over onto the roofs of the side buildings. The building that was eventually constructed was much taller, in the shape of a cube, and without any side rooms. The dome was also well within the footprint of the cube, and the building did not have any of the proposed finishes applied to the walls, nor was it constructed out of materials in those plans – namely, stone.[citation needed]

Patrick Baron, a piano tuner and technician who worked in the area at the time, visited the island twice in 2012 to tune a piano inside the building. Baron later described the structure as a relatively small building near the coast which was far away from the other buildings on the island. He said it was "dull pewter" in colour, featured statues that resembled gargoyles atop the roof, and a large glass door which faced south. Baron then confirmed the building against photographs provided by Trotter, despite it being blue and white in the images, based on its size, shape and location — indicating the distinctive stripes and false wooden door were painted after October 2012.[28] Footage captured by an American content creator who snuck onto the island in 2023 shows that the building and surrounding area had been painted white.[29]

Interior

Baron went on to describe the interior as having only one large room that had two levels: the ground floor four to six feet tall and another on a slightly raised platform which was accessed by a single step. The flooring looked wooden and was covered with a large Oriental rug. He recalls a grey sofa to his right, against the eastern wall; directly ahead of him a dark wood desk of about 10 feet, behind it several columns of floor-to-ceiling bookcases; to his left, against the western wall, was a small black grand piano. Baron's notes describe the piano as having been manufactured by the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company. Above the piano hung a portrait of Epstein and the pope, although Baron could not confirm which specific pope it was.[28]

Visitors

David Copperfield proposed to Claudia Schiffer on Little St. James, three months after meeting her in 1993.[30]

Victoria's Secret models were among the guests a former Epstein employee saw there, and billionaire Les Wexner visited the island at least once.[12] Prince Andrew, Duke of York paid at least one visit aboard Epstein's private jet to the island, although former staff said he visited Little St. James several times.[31]

Virginia Roberts, later known as Virginia Giuffre, states in a lawsuit that while working at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort[32] she was lured into a sex-trafficking ring run by Epstein and while traveling with Epstein she saw Bill Clinton on the island.[33] A Freedom of Information Act request for United States Secret Service records of visits Bill Clinton may have made to Little St. James produced no such evidence.[33] According to Epstein's flight logs, Clinton never flew near the U.S. Virgin Islands.[34] In July 2019, a Clinton spokesperson issued a statement saying Clinton never visited the island.[9][35]

Jes Staley, the former head of Barclays, visited the island in 2015.[36]

Reputation under Epstein's ownership

During and after its ownership by financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, the island acquired nicknames such as "Isle of Babes",[37] "Island of Sin",[31] "Pedophile Island",[38][10] "Orgy Island",[38][10] and "Epstein Island".[39]

According to attorneys for Epstein's alleged victims, Little St. James is where many of the crimes against minors were committed by Epstein and friends who traveled there with him.[40] Court documents allege that then-17-year-old Virginia Roberts was forced by Epstein to have sex with Prince Andrew on several occasions, including as part of an orgy on Little St. James.[31][41] Buckingham Palace has denied this allegation.[42][43] A lawyer for Epstein has described the allegations of orgies by Roberts as "old and discredited".[31]

According to locals, Epstein continued to bring underage girls to the island in 2019, after he was registered as a sex offender.[44] In August 2019, following Epstein's death, FBI agents searched his residence on Little St. James.[45][46]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d Ward, Vicky (June 27, 2011). "The Talented Mr. Epstein". Vanity Fair. Archived from the original on June 12, 2015. Retrieved July 8, 2019.
  2. ^ a b Thomas, Landon Jr. (July 1, 2008). "Financier Starts Sentence in Prostitution Case". The New York Times. Archived from the original on July 8, 2019. Retrieved July 8, 2019.
  3. ^ "Lesser Antilles : Barbados to the Virgin Islands". Cambridgeshire, England : Imray, Norie & Wilson Ltd. 1991. Retrieved 5 January 2024.
  4. ^ a b "Jeffrey Epstein arrested on sex trafficking charges". miamiherald. Archived from the original on 2019-07-07. Retrieved 2019-07-08.
  5. ^ Coaston, Jane (December 3, 2018). "Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who is friends with Donald Trump and Bill Clinton explained". Vox. Archived from the original on August 24, 2019. Retrieved July 9, 2019.
  6. ^ "VInow: Virgin Islands Geography". vinow.com. Retrieved January 5, 2024. The islands are the peaks of submerged mountains that rise from the ocean floor....The geography of the islands consists of seaside cliffs, mountains with lush forest, tiny streams, arid lands and beautiful white sand beaches.
  7. ^ "Weather". U.S. National Park Service. September 8, 2022. Retrieved January 5, 2024. The Tradewinds (the Easterlies) dominate the weather in the Virgin Islands, blowing east to west across the tropical Atlantic. The winter tends to bring stronger winds and less rain, and the summer tends to bring more rain and lighter winds.
  8. ^ a b "Private Properties". Wall Street Journal. April 18, 1997. Archived from the original on August 13, 2019. Retrieved August 13, 2019.
  9. ^ a b "Whispers, suspicion about Epstein on Caribbean island". July 11, 2019. Archived from the original on August 13, 2019. Retrieved August 13, 2019 – via Associated Press.
  10. ^ a b c d Stieb, Matt (2019-07-10). "Everything We Know About Jeffrey Epstein's Private 'Pedophile Island'". Intelligencer. Archived from the original on 2019-09-03. Retrieved 2019-07-13.
  11. ^ Metcalf, Tom (August 14, 2019). "The Epstein Tapes: Unearthed Recordings From His Private Island". bloomberg. Retrieved 17 July 2025.
  12. ^ a b c "The Mystery Surrounding Jeffrey Epstein's Private Island". www.bloomberg.com. 12 July 2019. Archived from the original on 2019-07-26. Retrieved 2019-07-26.
  13. ^ Lisette Voytko (July 16, 2019). "Court Documents Confirm Jeffrey Epstein Is Nowhere Near A Billionaire". Forbes. Archived from the original on August 12, 2019. Retrieved August 13, 2019.
  14. ^ Briquelet, Kate; Cartwright, Lachlan (March 12, 2019). "Notorious Billionaire Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein Funded This 'Women's Empowerment' Advocate". The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on July 8, 2019. Retrieved July 8, 2019.
  15. ^ "INSIDE THE TIMES: July 1, 2008". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 29, 2021. Retrieved December 29, 2021.
  16. ^ DeGregory, Priscilla; Sheehy, Kate (August 19, 2019). "Exclusive | Jeffrey Epstein signed will just two days before suicide".
  17. ^ "Jeffrey Epstein Will | PDF | Trust Law | Probate". Scribd.
  18. ^ Clarke, Sarah Paynter and Katherine (2022-03-23). "Jeffrey Epstein's Private Islands in the Caribbean to List for $125 Million". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Archived from the original on 2022-03-24. Retrieved 2022-03-25.
  19. ^ "Jeffrey Epstein's St. James Islands Listed For Sale". St. Thomas Source. 2022-03-23. Archived from the original on 2023-02-14. Retrieved 2022-03-25.
  20. ^ Investments, S. D. "SD Investments Announces Acquisition of Great St. James and Little St. James Islands in the United States Virgin Islands". prnewswire.com (Press release). Archived from the original on 2023-05-06. Retrieved 2023-05-06.
  21. ^ "Eavesdrop: Here are all the architects and designers in Jeffrey Epstein's black book". 15 August 2019. {{cite web}}: |first= missing |last= (help)
  22. ^ "Who Was Jeffrey Epstein Calling? A close study of his circle — social, professional, transactional — reveals a damning portrait of elite New York". 22 July 2019. {{cite web}}: |first= missing |last= (help)
  23. ^ "The Talented Mr. Epstein". Vanity Fair. 1 March 2003.
  24. ^ a b "Jeffrey Epstein's Private Island Has Become a Tourist Attraction". Oprah Daily. 29 May 2020.
  25. ^ "4.8K aerial stock footage of an Oceanfront gold domed building, Little St James Island Aerial Stock Footage AX102_250". Axiom Images. 12 March 2015. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  26. ^ a b Rich Schapiro (August 1, 2019). "Jeffrey Epstein's bizarre blue-striped building on private island raised alarm". NBC News. Archived from the original on August 1, 2019. Retrieved August 2, 2019.
  27. ^ Schapiro, Rich (1 Aug 2019). "Jeffrey Epstein's bizarre blue-striped building on private island raised alarm". NBC News. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  28. ^ a b Trotter, J.K. (10 September 2019). "Jeffrey Epstein's island temple inspired dozens of conspiracy theories. We spoke to someone who went inside". Business Insider. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
  29. ^ Oliveira, Tyler (2 May 2023). "I Snuck onto Jeffrey Epstein's Island". YouTube.
  30. ^ Espinoza, Galina (April 9, 2001). "A Lift Out of Life". People. Archived from the original on August 13, 2019. Retrieved August 13, 2019.
  31. ^ a b c d "Stephen Hawking pictured on Jeffrey Epstein's 'Island of Sin'". The Daily Telegraph. January 12, 2015. Archived from the original on April 10, 2018. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  32. ^ Brown, Julie K.; Blaskey, Sarah (9 August 2019). "Huge cache of records details how Jeffrey Epstein and madam lured girls into depraved world". Miami Herald. Archived from the original on 16 January 2020. Retrieved 28 July 2020. Virginia Roberts, now Giuffre, says she was 16 and working as a locker room attendant at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort when she was approached by Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein's associate, about becoming a masseuse for Epstein.
  33. ^ a b Gerstein, Josh (4 May 2017). "The one weird court case linking Trump, Bill Clinton, and a billionaire pedophile". POLITICO. Archived from the original on 2021-03-10. Retrieved 2019-07-08.
  34. ^ "Plenty Of Innuendo, But No Hard Evidence Of New Clinton Sex Scandal". BuzzFeed News. January 28, 2015. Archived from the original on July 8, 2019. Retrieved July 8, 2019.
  35. ^ Sullivan, Kate (July 8, 2019). "Bill Clinton 'knows nothing' about Epstein's 'terrible crimes,' spokesman says". CNN. Archived from the original on August 13, 2019. Retrieved August 13, 2019.
  36. ^ "Jeffrey Epstein's private islands put up for sale for $125m". BBC News. 2022-03-24. Archived from the original on 2022-03-24. Retrieved 2022-03-25.
  37. ^ Nally, Leland. "I called everyone in Jeffrey Epstein's little black book".
  38. ^ a b Levin, Jonathan; Farrell, Greg; Metcalf, Tom (12 July 2019). "Mystery surrounds Jeffrey Epstein's private island in the Caribbean". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 2019-07-13. Retrieved 2019-07-13.
  39. ^ Velsey, Kim (8 May 2023). "Who Wants to Vacation on Epstein Island?". curbed.com. Curbed. Archived from the original on 2 September 2023. Retrieved 2 September 2023.
  40. ^ "The Salacious Ammo Even Donald Trump Won't Use in a Fight Against Hillary Clinton – VICE News". News.vice.com. 29 January 2016. Archived from the original on 2019-07-16. Retrieved 2019-07-09.
  41. ^ "Prince Andrew sex allegations: Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein 'had 21". The Independent. January 6, 2015. Archived from the original on June 1, 2020. Retrieved July 9, 2019.
  42. ^ Pavia, Will (January 9, 2015). "Stephen Hawking joined Jeffrey Epstein private island soiree". The Australian.
  43. ^ Swaine, Jon (January 13, 2015). "Jeffrey Epstein's donations to young pupils prompts US Virgin Islands review". The Guardian. Archived from the original on November 10, 2016. Retrieved July 8, 2019 – via www.theguardian.com.
  44. ^ ""The girls were just so young": The horrors of Jeffrey Epstein's private island". Vanity Fair. July 20, 2019. Archived from the original on August 11, 2019. Retrieved August 13, 2019.
  45. ^ "FBI searches Jeffrey Epstein's home in Virgin Islands". CNBC. August 12, 2019. Archived from the original on August 13, 2019. Retrieved August 13, 2019.
  46. ^ "FBI agents swarm Jeffrey Epstein's private Caribbean island". August 13, 2019. Archived from the original on August 13, 2019. Retrieved August 13, 2019 – via NBC News.
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