<\/a>Born in London in 1937, Blackwell grew up in Jamaica. His mother was a friend of James Bond author Ian Fleming, who had an 18-acre retreat near Ocho Rios called Goldeneye. <\/P>\n
Blackwell later turned Goldeneye into an exclusive lodge. Through Island Outposts, he now owns three other small resorts in Jamaica, including the historic Strawberry Hill plantation. <\/P>
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Blackwell set up Island Records in 1959 to record Jamaican ska hits. Three years later he moved to London, and marketed Island's releases to Britain's Jamaican immigrant community. <\/P>
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In 1964 he produced 'My Boy Lollipop' by Millie Small, a 15-year-old Jamaican girl, which became a huge worldwide hit. After that Blackwell was drawn into the world of pop and rock. He managed The Spencer Davis Group, which featured Steve Winwood, and launched Island as a rock label on the back of Winwood's group Traffic. <\/P>
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In 1971, Blackwell cut a deal with the group who came to him as Bob Marley and The Wailers. He produced their first album 'Catch a Fire' and also launched the recording careers of such well-known names as Cat Stevens, Spooky Tooth, Robert Palmer and Mott the Hoople. <\/P>
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He sold Island Records to the giant Dutch label, PolyGram, in 1989 for $300m. Polygram ousted him from the company in 1997. <\/P>
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Blackwell's hotel interests started just over 10 years ago, when he bought the 1939-vintage Marlin Hotel on Miami Beach, just as the area was reviving as a popular tourist destination. <\/P>
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"Later, I was asked to start renting out Goldeneye, and over time I started adding hotels," he said in a recent interview. "Our properties are small, and therefore we market them very differently from traditional hotels. So, providing we do not disappoint, we will continue to thrive very much on a word-of-mouth basis. <\/P>
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Island Outpost also owns the 45-room Tides Hotel and the 54-room Kent Hotel in the heart of Miami Beach's famed Art Deco district. All are known as celebrity getaway palaces. <\/P>
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The company's most unusual property is Cuckoo's Nest in Provo, Utah. This spectacular, three-level mountain home with 5 bedrooms was designed and built by Blackwell in 1991. <\/P>
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Photo: Chris Blackwell<\/I><\/P>
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By Larry Smith, The Nassau Guardian<\/B><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Compass Point owner Chris Blackwell has denied reports that he is selling the 19-unit West Bay Street resort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244022\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}