Mustique is one of the Grenadine islands, which were first sighted by Spanish sailors in the 15th century, who named them Los Pajaros, or “the birds.” Ironically, The Grenadines got their name from pirates, who used the island’s secluded coves and bays as headquarters and a place to store treasure. It was not until well into the colonial era that piracy was more or less stamped out in the Caribbean, at which point the economy of Mustique became much more reliant on the production of sugar cane. When slavery was outlawed in all British territories during the early 1800s, sugar plantations on the island closed. Today, the only remnants of Mustique’s agricultural past lies in the plantation of Cotton House and the sugar mill at Endeavor.

The island was pretty much neglected until the 1950s, when Lord Glenconner purchased and began to develop it. One of the first major construction projects on the island was the villa of Les Jolies Eaux (The Pretty Waters), which was the property of Princess Margaret. Today, the island belongs to the Mustique Company, which has major stock shareholders in twenty countries and operates the island’s 89 villas, of which 64 are available for weekly rental.