C364+9G5, Oracabessa, Jamaica
In 1942, a high-level meeting of Anglo-American intelligence brought Fleming to Jamaica. Impulsively, he declared that he would return to the island after the war and make it his lifelong home. Drawing on years spent on Fleet Street writing news reports and bureaucratic years writing intelligence reports, he turned his talent to creating his enduring spy hero James Bond—a larger-than-life version of Fleming himself. Bond’s clothes were better, and his gadgets more impressive. Fleming rivaled Bond in both his sense of humor and wit, as well as his romantic conquests.
“Goldeneye” is the mansion (now a hotel) of the famous novelist Ian Fleming in Oracabessa, Jamaica, on the north coast. Fleming bought the land adjacent to another famous mansion—Golden Clouds—in 1946 and built his home on the edge of a cliff overlooking a private beach.
The mansion was built exclusively for personal use, relaxation, and working on the James Bond stories. On February 17, 1952, Fleming began writing his first Bond novel, Casino Royale, at Goldeneye. Over the next twelve years, Fleming wrote all his Bond stories there. The novels were a tremendous success and forever changed the life of Fleming himself and his creation—the Goldeneye mansion.
Built according to Fleming’s sketches, the house has a modest layout—three bedrooms with wooden shutters on the windows. For swimming, Fleming installed a pool. His guests included artists, musicians, and filmmakers. Today, the mansion operates as a hotel and resort, including several cottages in addition to Fleming’s house.
Despite the obvious similarity to the neighboring Golden Clouds, Fleming claimed that the mansion’s name originated from Carson McCullers’ 1940 novel Reflections in a Golden Eye and the “Goldeneye” plan developed by Fleming as an officer during World War II in case of a Nazi invasion of Gibraltar through Spain.
Fleming joined the staff of The Sunday Times in 1946 and became part of the newspaper’s network of correspondents worldwide. He arranged with the editors to spend January and February each year in Jamaica writing his novels.
So it was here, in the romantic, tropical, exotic surroundings of Oracabessa Bay, that Fleming’s imagination and hard work triumphed. Sitting at his simple wooden desk in the corner of the villa he designed for himself, Fleming wrote each of the 14 books that made the name James Bond recognizable across the globe. James is the most common English name. Bond is synonymous with reliability or a fashionable street in central Mayfair.
But in fact, in a quirky way, Fleming simply borrowed the name of an English ornithologist, author of the Field Guide to the Birds of the West Indies, for his iconic, unforgettable, masculine hero.
On February 17, 1952, James Bond first appeared on the pages of the novel Casino Royale. Over the next fourteen years, Fleming wrote all his Bond novels at the Goldeneye mansion.
A number of Bond films, including Dr. No and Live and Let Die, were filmed in the vicinity of the estate.
The estate was equally popular among Hollywood stars and great British writers, as well as British aristocrats and heads of international states: Errol Flynn, Lucian Freud, Truman Capote, Patrick Leigh Fermor, the Duchess of Devonshire, Princess Margaret.
In 1956, British Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden and his wife Clarissa spent a month at the mansion as Eden’s health deteriorated following the Suez Crisis.
In 1976, twelve years after Ian Fleming’s death, the mansion was sold to reggae musician Bob Marley. A year later, he sold the estate to Chris Blackwell, founder of the record company Island Records. In 1995, the seventeenth James Bond film was titled GoldenEye. Next to the mansion is James Bond Beach.
In 1982, Sting wrote “Every Breath You Take” at Fleming’s desk during a vacation at the estate.
Today, the area of the luxurious hotel complex located here far exceeds the modest writer’s abode, but the spirit of the Fleming era still reigns.
Sources:
https://dzen.ru/b/Y_m8gIqYNnokYTKk
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldeneye_(mansion)
https://www.theflemingvilla.com/the-history/
