Beauty of the Islands
The beautiful model India Hicks and her partner David Flint Wood have made their dream a reality by decorating and restoring three houses and a hotel on two islands in the Bahamas.
DAUGHTER OF FAMED interior decorator David Hicks, India is the granddaughter of Lord and Lady Mountbatten of Burma and godchild of the Prince of Wales (she was chosen as a bridesmaid at the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana in 1980).Born in London in 1967, India attended school at Gordonstoun in Scotland. After backpacking around the world for a year, she moved to Boston to pursue a degree in photography.
When designer Ralph Lauren saw her featured in W Magazine, her modeling career took off. As a model she has appeared in some ,of the world’s leading magazines including American Vogue, Elle, Harper’s and Marie Claire. She now lives with her partner David Flint Wood on Harbour Island in the Bahamas, where they part own The Landing, an 1800's restored building that houses a restaurant and hotel. They live with their three sons, a parrot, a cat and a dog called, Barrel. A plane flight away from a spa, a gym or a pharmacy, India’s health and beauty routines make use of what nature intended. India shares her time between her haven in the Bahamas and her parents' home near Watlington, Oxfordshire.
SHE AND DAVID FLINT WOOD bought their 1950s five-bedroom Bahamian beach house home in 1997, then spent a year adding verandas and balustrades to give the home an 1850s look. A breezy, light-filled space just steps away from the ocean, the house has a bright style combined with grand Caribbean flourishes. ‘I developed a style quite different from my father's,’ she says. ‘The decorative style we have evolved here is more in tune with an older Caribbean feel.’ The Landing is now a thriving hotel which has an international following, and their style is also chronicled in their book ‘Island Life’ which captures the sense of island living in this tropical paradise. Life on the island has given India time to think not only about her home and her family but also about the natural peace and beauty that comes from within. ‘She began what she calls an ‘holistic journey’ whichculminated in the publication of her book ‘Island Beauty’. More about wellbeing than the pursuit of beauty as an ideal, in this book India focuses on being more accepting of oneself, ‘wherever you are’. She argues that ‘if women the world over were more accepting and made more time for themselves away from the telephone and other distractions, they would be much happier.’ Living, as she does, a plane ride away from fashionable salons and beauty stores, her book finds inspiration from the natural resources which surround her in her Caribbean idyll and she demonstrates how they can be used or applied to life anywhere. With a foreword by Elle Macpherson, the book is shot on location in the Bahamas for beautiful inspiration; the advice is applicable whether you live on a desert island or just wish to get away to one. Using a fusion of sensible advice gained from her years of modelling and her research into the “bush medicine” of the islands, India offers inspiration, quick tips and recipes to create a home spa for inner health and outer beauty. From simple cleansers and body scrubs to suggestions for tailored exercise, mother-and-baby massage and energy foods, each chapter focuses on easy and accessible ways to throw off the shackles of a busy, noisy and chemical-reliant life to embrace time, space and nature for our own benefit. She spends much of her time on her local charity work which includes helping raise awareness for a Community School on the island and raising money for sponsorship and scholarships for the school. She sees the project as ‘building leaders for the future’. Outside the Caribbean, she also raises considerable funds for Indian charities and the Naomi Children’s Trust in the UK. She admits that the glamour of her previous life in New York, London and Paris was thrilling but has no regrets about the fulfilling island life she has built with her family. A testament to her own regime, India says in the opening of her book, ‘Moving away from a more conventional world opened my eyes to a new approach to beauty. I became inspired by a nation of people at ease with themselves. Beauty in The Bahamas cannot be defined or stereotyped. It is not seen as a blessing bestowed upon a few but as within us all.’
Island Beauty by India Hicks is published by Pavilion.
produced). This town still contains Victorian structures with fabulous fretwork and period detailing, and became the model for The Hermitage’s fretwork stair rail. Having the chance to scrutinize and enjoy the existing architecture enabled me to better understand how to create spaces worthy of being built in this magnificent country. I learned of the beauty and coolness provided by spacious volumes, the visual advantage of having rooms flow easily from one to the next, the value of including tropical vegetation as part of the setting, the major necessity of maximizing breezes coming off of the sea and the mountains, and the importance of showcasing Jamaican materials and fine Jamaican workmanship. By using local materials (marble, limestone, mahogany, and cut stone) installed by local craftsmen, visitors became so much more able to understand the real Jamaica.
People often tell me that The Hermitage seems much older and more “established” than a home built in 1990. My favorite “review” came in a delightful letter written to me by frequent visitor and famed author Anna Quindlen: “I’m not sure it’s entirely possible to capture the beauty and grandeur of The Hermitage in photographs, both because of its sprawl and because so much of its essential rightness is clear only when you are living there. It’s difficult to appreciate the open rooms, the views of the sea, and the way each room flows into the next unless you are living it. There is such a feeling of easy elegance about it, without any of the preciousness or intimidation that that word usually implies. It’s the elegance of being exactly right, of ceding magnificence to the sky and the sea. I have rarely been in a house that was so completely at home in and respectful of, it’s grand location.”
