Supermodel Jodie Kidd once described one of her greatest pleasures as saddling up her horse and “galloping along the beaches of the Caribbean”. It is little wonder that this aristocratic glamour girl and great granddaughter of press baron Lord Beaverbrook has such exotic tastes — much of her childhood was spent on the white sands of Barbados at the Kidds’ family home, Holders House — still a retreat from the public eye.
An imposing 18th-century plantation house set just yards from the exclusive Sandy Lane resort in the chic parish of St James, Holders House, currently valued at £3.2m, is a Kidd legacy. Jodie’s father, Johnnie, himself no stranger to the public eye, having been a world-class showjumper and member of the British Olympic equestrian team, took over the house from his mother, the Hon Janet Aitken Kidd, in the 1980s. She was a severe asthmatic and went on a cruise in search of warmer climes to ease her medical condition. On reaching Barbados in 1958, Janet fell in love with the island, at a time when Sandy Lane was but an idea and architect Oliver Messel was one of the only “celebrities” to have discovered its relatively unknown beauty.
Janet had a house built — one of the first on the Sandy Lane estate — and four years later nearby Holders House came up for sale. It was a semi-derelict property with 300 acres, but she was undeterred and snapped it up for about 200,000 Barbados dollars (£64,000). “She liked a challenge,” says Johnnie’s wife, Wendy. Every winter thereafter was spent on the island.
Johnnie and Wendy spend about eight months of the year in Barbados, and a highlight of their stay is Holders Season. Now acknowledged as one of the Caribbean’s most important cultural events, this is a festival of opera, music and theatre, pioneered by Wendy 10 years ago and held every March, in the hot and dry high Caribbean season, in the grounds of the house. And oh, what grounds. Despite having sold off a lot of the land during the 1960s and 1970s, the Kidds have ensured that the remaining 6 acres are more than enough of a feast for the eyes.
Bordering Sandy Lane and set back a little from the white sands of the beach, the gardens boast a mass of tropical trees and bougainvillea. For each of the evening performances in the festival, close on 500 guests mill around sipping champagne, their profiles lit dramatically by fireflies and strategically placed candelabra.
It makes you wonder if Luciano Pavarotti, Lesley Garrett, Tim Rice and other past performers have really been attracted by the altruistic motive of promoting culture further afield, or the decidedly indulgent opportunity to wallow in such a sensational setting just a 7½-hour direct flight from Britain away. Having grown from five performers and a pianist at the first festival in 1993 to more than 150 artists this year, the Kidds’ undertaking has developed into a much bigger event than they bargained for. But Wendy is undaunted and has even built four chattel houses — distinctive traditional Bajan plantation houses stood on wooden blocks, so they could be moved from leasehold to leasehold — in the grounds to accommodate festival staff.
“Chattel houses are fairly modest, costing anything from £10,000 to £26,000. Ours are nearer the upper end of the price scale because they are made of hardwood,” says Wendy. In the summer the Kidds throw open their chattel “village” to schoolchildren, such as visiting “little cricket teams”. It certainly beats a youth hostel.
To encourage the luxury end of the market, the Barbados government charges no capital gains tax or estate duty on property, and there are no restrictions on foreign buyers. Most property on Barbados is bought with a combination of the owners’ investment and borrowing, says Knight Frank in Britain, and US dollar loans are available for non-residents through First Caribbean International Bank for up to 60% of the value of the investment, for up to 15 years. Vat of 7.5% applies to rents on any property let short-term, and profits are subject to income tax in Barbados. An annual land tax of 0.2% applies to properties valued at up to £222,000, rising to 0.75% for those costing more than £540,000.
Holders House is a traditional plantation house, one of many built on the island in the early 1700s when sugar was a rich man’s game. In keeping with other homes of that period, it is a sturdy structure made of solid coral rock. “It is a typical small plantation house,” Wendy explains.
“Downstairs is an air-conditioned media room, where we organise and run the festival, a bedroom that used to be a dining room, an outdoor and an indoor dining area, then a wing with two bedrooms and a bathroom. Upstairs there are three bedrooms.” At the back of the house is also a cottage, and the Kidds have just had a big new gallery and kitchen built there too.
“It is the first time we have really done anything to the house in the 20 or so years we have been here, but now we have started, we are doing lots! We are renovating the entire inside, as well as extending, to bring it out of the 1960s,” explains Wendy. Like many Bajan plantation houses, Holders House had been heavily furnished with dark mahogany from local trees. “It was a very traditional decor — a kind of cross between Bajan and English country, but Johnnie’s mother was more old-fashioned than us. “It’s been a bit of a wrench to do it, and I think that’s why we deliberately left it so long. But the time has come to update it and put some funky bits in. There was lots of wrought iron — I absolutely hated it. We’ve gotten rid of it, but we don’t want to spoil the traditional atmosphere — just make it more comfortable,” says Wendy. “The kitchen was awful, really small. We have extended it outside and it is now enormous. We feed everyone from the crew to the performers — it’s a big job, and there are now whole areas lined with fridges. It’s like a big industrial kitchen, but it’s also very friendly.”
Balinese designs have influenced the interior, and the couple’s love of music has also played its part. “We have lots of musical instruments around, like drums and a piano, which lots of people play except me. Johnnie also plays guitar,” says Wendy. His musical interest also led him to build by hand a state-of-the-art recording studio in the grounds four years ago. Much to her disgust, it has already needed refurbishing: “I didn’t realise how quickly the technology dates. I don’t even look at the figures involved.”
So what next? “All that’s left to do is the bathrooms. They are, well, very 1960s,” says Wendy. “Some people throw their hands up in horror if they don’t have twin basins!” Wendy and Johnnie do worry about “some people”, as they occasionally rent out the house. Guests paying £3,200 a week for rental of the main house, or £4,800 in high season — plus 30% extra for use of the cottage — expect such things.
When the estate isn’t invaded by festival-goers, schoolchildren or holiday-makers, the Kidds have their own endless stream of visitors. Jodie (or “the public one” as Wendy describes her) is still modelling, but when she isn’t travelling the world on assignments, playing polo, breeding ponies on her Wiltshire farm or working as a representative for the Red Cross, she likes to drop in at Holders House. And the couple have four other offspring who delight in spending as much time as possible at their family hideaway. Debbie, their eldest daughter, lives at Holders full-time, managing the property and acting as Wendy’s “right-hand man” during the festival. Nick, the Kidds’ eldest son, lives in Sydney, while Jack is a professional polo player and Jemma makes her living as a make-up artist.
In March this year, Jack and his wife had their second child — Johnnie Jr (their first is two-year-old daughter, Jaden), so no doubt their grandchildren will soon start to enjoy the delights of the Kidds’ Caribbean dream.
When Wendy and Johnnie aren’t entertaining family, their proximity to Sandy Lane means that a fair share of celebrities — including Michael Winner — drop in to cool off from the heat of the beach in the shade of their mahogany trees.
So could Wendy and Johnnie ever think of selling the Kidd family jewel and making do with the property they are looking to buy in London? “Of course,” says Wendy, surprised. “One day it will be too big.” Sounds like wishful thinking: with children, grandchildren, cricket teams, musicians, lighting technicians and Michael Winner, that prospect seems a long way off.
Villa life
Properties on Sugar Hill, the 50-acre David Lloyd estate with its clubhouse, 2,000sq ft pool, fitness centre and tennis courts, range from £190,000 for one-bed villas to £4.1m for a villa of over 50,000sq ft. Knight Frank, 020 7629 8171, www.knightfrank.com
This four-bedroom, four-bathroom, four-reception-room villa on the Sandy Lane Resort, outside St James, with landscaped tropical gardens and al fresco dining for 10 in a gazebo, is for sale for £2.7m. Hamptons, 020 7589 8844, www.hamptons.co.uk
Prices start at £64,000 for a small studio to £206,100 for a two-bed apartment on Springcourt, a development in the southwest. All have air conditioning, private patio and gated security.
World Class Homes, 0800 731 4713, www.worldclasshomes.co.uk
Getting there
- Barbados is a 7½-hour flight from Britain. January-March is high season; the year-round temperature is 29C-32C
- Properties start from £64,000 for a studio (from World Class Homes) to private homes worth millions
- Once a price is agreed, the buyer pays a 10% deposit, held in escrow until completion. The vendor pays commission and survey costs. Each party pays legal fees of 1.5% to 2% of the price, plus Vat
