Like most of the Bahamian Out Islands, Eleuthera feels sleepy and remote, with modest dwellings, potholed roads and scrubby vegetation backed by expanses of dazzling sea. The water taxi across to Harbour Island takes less than 10 minutes, but this brief journey across a lagoonlike bay brings you to a place that is unexpectedly different. Dunmore Town is a pretty and manicured settlement, its waterfront lined by enviable 18th-century cottages decked out in an entire paintbox of pastel colors and surrounded by white picket fences. Alighting at Valentines Marina or the Government Dock, there is a palpable sense of energy and bustle, evidence of commerce and prosperity.

Just over 3 miles long and at most a mile wide, Harbour Island has around 1,800 permanent inhabitants, a population that swells each winter with an influx of affluent snowbirds. (On approximately the same latitude as Miami, its climate is subtropical, with cooler temperatures in January and February than in the islands of the Caribbean proper, 750 miles to the south.) Its eastern shore is lined by a spectacular stretch of pink sand long beloved by fashion photographers, while inland a network of bumpy roads slices through lush vegetation illuminated by electric cascades of hibiscus and bougainvillea. There are few cars or trucks, and most people get around on golf carts, a mode of transport that promotes an informal and sociable atmosphere. People shout cheerful greetings to passing acquaintances, or pull over abruptly to engage in conversation. And despite its reputation as a magnet for movie people and celebrities of all stripes, Harbour Island feels open and warmhearted. It is never glitzy. Unlike St. Barths, say, there are few fancy boutiques. Indeed, visitors are informed with a kind of pride that here even the billionaires dress in T-shirts and faded shorts and look exactly like everybody else.

Bahama House

It had been four years since my previous visit, and my return had been prompted chiefly by the opening of Bahama House, an 11-room boutique hotel that is part of the upscale Eleven Experience company owned by Chad Pike, a senior managing director at the Blackstone Group. (We currently recommend two of its properties in Colorado: Scarp Ridge Lodge and Taylor River Lodge.) I knew that Harbour Island had escaped the destruction of Hurricane Dorian, which passed to the northeast in September 2019 on its way to devastate Abaco and Grand Bahama, but it was still a relief to see Dunmore Town looking as well groomed as ever.