Heirloom purchases High Hope Wiltshire
CAYMAN-BASED real estate fund Heirloom Caribbean has inked a deal to buy land near Montego Bay, where it plans to develop a boutique hotel and gated community.
The 87-acre property, which is known as High Hope Wiltshire and which has a 6,000 square-foot villa and 10 additional, unfinished cottages, was listed for some time for a selling price of US$1.1 million ($95 million) to US$1.2 million.
Heirloom did not disclose the selling price, but in a press release, outlined that approximately 50 acres of the property will be sub-divided into a gated community with the hotel/spa becoming the focal point of the development.
The villa and the 10 cottages would be integrated into the single hotel.
Heirloom said that “Montego Bay is one of the top tourist destinations in the Caribbean, and the manager believes that this investment offers an excellent opportunity for local and overseas investors to participate in the growing Jamaican real estate market”.
Further announcement will be made by the company once the acquisition has been completed.
Heirloom Caribbean launched in March last year, with the main focus of providing investors with capital appreciation and income by investing in a diversified portfolio of real estate projects and assets in the Caribbean Region and in Latin American countries whose shores are bounded on the Caribbean Sea.
On its website, the fund said that it aggregates investment opportunities across the region into an investment portfolio that diversifies the risk while providing for significant long-term capital appreciation and income.
So far, it has listed US$26.5 million invested in properties — mostly hotels and villas — in the Bahamas, the US Virgin Islands and Grenada.
Last June, it announced a joint venture partnership with Stanhope Shepherd Ltd, for which it said it will provide up to US$50 million in debt and equity financing for the development of the Harbour Island Residences in Jolly Harbour, Antigua.
Its portfolio also includes townhouse apartments in Barbados.
High Hope Wiltshire was the former home of US Ambassador Walter L Rice, and it was also home to movie producer David Selznick who produced the blockbuster film Gone with the Wind and also The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
