The island of Little St. James — better known to some as Jeffrey Epstein’s “Pedophile Island” — has undergone a significant makeover as its new owner prepares it for a new life as a luxury resort.
Billionaire co-founder of Black Diamond Capital Management Stephen Deckoff bought it and nearby Great St. James for $60 million in May — a little less than half the original asking price of $125 million, the New York Post noted.
Now, the Post has obtained exclusive new pictures of the Island’s new look.
The original buildings appear to be mostly intact, but with some additions and significantly different paint jobs.
For example, the previously blue-striped “temple” building on the coast is almost unrecognizable in its current form.
“The temple was previously painted to make it look like it had a pair of forbidding wooden front doors with a medieval-style lock, but has now been remodeled as an outdoor patio and fire pit, and appears ready for a DJ set,” the Post reported.
The images revealed a number of less permanent changes, as well, including new deck chairs around a pool and a couple of “inflatable swans.”
Deckoff reportedly plans to open a luxury resort and hotel, along with “related attractions,” on the island sometime in 2025.
In doing so, however, the billionaire is leaving the original buildings largely intact, choosing to remodel and repurpose them rather than tear down and rebuild.
Would you ever spend money to travel to Epstein’s old island?
According to the Post, Epstein bought Little St. James in 1998 for nearly $8 million and then spent another $20 million to acquire Great St. James in 2016, but never invested significantly in developing the second island.
On Little St. James, however, he put up “the main villa, a library, movie theater and bathhouse, a helipad, private dock, gas station, gym, tiki hut and guest accommodations,” the Post reported.
“It was a s***ty island” when he Epstein bought it, his brother Mark Epstein told the Post this week.
“He hired a crew and said make it look like the Polynesian island. So they put palm trees in — he put in a fortune of money, but he didn’t care,” he explained. “This is what he wanted, and he turned the island into what he wanted it to be.”
Epstein told his brother that he purchased the second island largely to keep it out of the hands of people who might build something there that he didn’t like.
“He told me he bought the other island,” Mark Epstein told the Post. “I said, ‘What do you need two islands for?’ He said if somebody else bought it, in a short period of time he’d been looking at McDonald’s arches [from the smaller] island.”
Epstein has been back in the news in recent days as the names of some of his associates have been released, with a few more to come soon.
Most of the names, however, have been public knowledge for some time, and some of the other names released belong to Epstein’s victims.
