By Samira Sheth - What’s New, Dubai - April 2005

The wealthier you become, the more the need for the ultimate in all luxuries - time and space. The feeling that you can push it all away - all the traffic and the pollution and the people and just escape to a space that is all yours, where no one can enter without your permission and where you are the master of all you survey  - is sunny and dreamy. So sunny that it can cause some people to spend up to 33 million euros (the asking price for one of the world’s most luxurious, Isla de sa Ferradura in Ibiza, Spain) for a secluded getaway they can call their own.

“When I spend a weekend at my private island, north of Toronto, it feels like I’ve been gone an entire week, relates Chris Krolow, Executive Director of Toronto-based Private Islands Online, a comprehensive online directory for anyone interested in private islands.

“Islands buy time. And with my busy schedule, that’s priceless.”

“People want to escape the stress of their daily lives as well as that of a packaged and crowded beach holiday. They want the unrivalled privacy an island affords them, the spectacular views and the feeling that they are masters of all they survey,” affirms Olaf Locke, Director with specialty brokerage Vladi Private Islands, based in Hamburg.

And of course, the sheer glamour of being an owner of this exclusive kind of real estate is an undeniable factor accelerating demand. New island owners would find themselves in exciting company. The world’s richest man - Microsoft founder Bill Gates - is reputed to own two islands, one in Nova Scotia and a second one in New Zealand.

Vladi has been selling private islands for thirty years to royalty and celebrities, with the most recent sale to Hollywood star, Nicholas Cage. CNN founder Ted Turner has title to Phyllis Island in South Carolina while British billionaire, Richard Branson owns Necker Island in the Caribbean. Tony Curtis and Brooke Shields are other island enthusiasts.

Increasingly being seen as the latest must have holiday accessory, worldwide demand for islands is rising and so are prices.

“We have seen prices increasing over the last 15 years,” confirms Locke. “Some of the islands in the Seychelles sold for a fraction of what they are today. Prices are going up enormously as demand has gone up while supply is relatively the same. After all, there are only so many islands on the market.”

And yet, conversely, Locke maintains that buying an island is “Not just a rich man’s fantasy” and that “anyone who can afford a really good car can afford an island.” Many of Locke’s clients realize half a lifetime’s worth of dreaming when they finally buy their …

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