Epstein Island: Little St. James in the U.S. Virgin Islands

Where Epstein Island is: Little St. James, southeast of St. Thomas

Little St. James is a private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands. It lies off the southeast coast of St. Thomas, belongs to that island's East End subdistrict and sits immediately southeast of its larger neighbor, Great St. James ^10,1,3. The shorthand Epstein Island has been used in news coverage since 2019 ².

How far it is from St. Thomas depends on the reference point, and reports differ. The Associated Press and The New York Times put it a little over one mile southeast, CBS News says approximately two miles off the coast, and a charter operator quotes about three miles ^3,7,1. Mapping sites place the island at roughly 18.300 degrees north, 64.825 degrees west, with a highest point of about 25 meters (82 feet); no official survey figure was found ¹¹. The terrain is hilly, and the striped building known as the temple stands on a lookout point at the southeastern edge ¹².

Its size is reported with a similar spread: 70 acres (NBC News, NPR, Newsweek), 71.5 acres (Virgin Islands Daily News, from DPNR and court files), 71.6 acres (the 2022 listing), 72 acres (CBS News, The Wall Street Journal) and roughly 75 acres (Associated Press), which is about 28 hectares ^{4,13,14,5,1,3,15}. Great St. James is far larger at about 160 to 165 acres; the two 2016 deeds add up to 161.32 acres, and together the islands cover more than 230 acres ^1,4,16,17. Great St. James sits just across the bay from the East End, its western side holds Christmas Cove, a well-known anchorage for day-charter boats out of St. Thomas, and the surrounding waters form the St. James Marine Reserve and Wildlife Sanctuary, one of the three St. Thomas East End Reserves ^5,18,19.

Politically, the island is U.S. soil: the U.S. Virgin Islands are an unincorporated, organized territory, bought from Denmark for US$25 million with the transfer on March 31, 1917; residents became U.S. citizens in 1927, and the capital, Charlotte Amalie, is on St. Thomas ^20,21. The climate is tropical with trade winds, and the official hurricane season runs from June to November ²².

There is no runway; the island is reached only by boat or helicopter ^23,15. Epstein's jets landed at Cyril E. King Airport, the only airport on St. Thomas, and passengers continued by helicopter to the island's helipad, while a vessel marked LSJ ferried staff and supplies across ^23,4,15. The nearest points on St. Thomas are Red Hook and Cabrita Point on the East End ².

What stands on the island: main house, guest villas and the striped building

The 2022 listing and the 2023 sale coverage described Little St. James as improved with a main compound, four guest villas, a helipad, a private dock, a gas station, high-capacity water filtration, two pools, a gym, a tiki hut, maintenance and viewing structures and three beaches ^5,4,25. Fortune added a cinema and a lagoon with flamingos, Newsweek identified tennis courts on 2023 satellite imagery, and Fox News documented a covered boat dock and stone pathways in 2019 ^26,13,27.

The size of the main residence depends on the document. DPNR permit records give the original house as 8,124 square feet with a 16,747-square-foot addition proposed in 2007, while NBC's reports on the August 2019 FBI search describe a 24,000-square-foot residence with two pools and a spa, which matches the two figures added together ^28,29,12. The Associated Press saw a stone mansion with cream-colored walls and a bright turquoise roof, surrounded by maids' quarters and other structures ³⁰.

The best-known structure is the blue-and-white striped building that reporters call the temple. DPNR permitted it in 2010 as a music pavilion; the drawings show an octagonal pavilion of 3,500 square feet with a grand piano, and workers told the Associated Press it was a music room with acoustic walls ^12,30,27. The finished building is rectangular, windowless at the front and appears to rise at least 30 feet, and NBC News found no evidence that DPNR inspected or approved it as built ¹². A 2015 aerial video showed a large gold dome and gold-painted statues at the front ³⁰.

The dome was gone by 2019, and reports differ on why: the Associated Press wrote that it flew off during the 2017 hurricane season, NBC News quoted locals who blamed Hurricane Maria, and other reports say staff took it down before the storm ^30,12,27. Hurricane Irma crossed the northern Virgin Islands on September 6, 2017 as a Category 5 storm, with widespread catastrophic damage on St. Thomas and St. John according to the National Hurricane Center, and Maria followed on September 20 as a high-end Category 4 ^31,32,33. Beyond the dome, storm damage to the island's other buildings is not documented in the reporting reviewed here.

The island has its own reverse-osmosis desalination plant and, since about 2005, a submarine power and fiber-optic cable from Cabrita Point ³⁴. Two large bird statues line the path from the dock to the house, and a life-size cow statue stands on the grounds ^34,26,35. Every documented structure is covered in the companion page on the map and buildings of Epstein Island.

Who has owned Epstein Island: from L.S.J. LLC to SD Investments

In April 1998 the holding company L.S.J. LLC, whose sole member was Jeffrey Epstein according to property records, bought Little St. James for US$7.95 million ^5,12,30. In January 2016 he added Great St. James through Great St. Jim LLC for a total of US$22.5 million: 80.1 acres for US$17.5 million on January 18 and the remaining 81.22 acres for US$5 million on January 21, with his name absent from public ownership documents for years ^5,14,37,17.

Epstein was arrested on July 6, 2019 on a federal indictment in New York charging one count of sex trafficking of minors and one count of conspiracy; he pleaded not guilty ^38,39. He was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan on August 10, 2019, and the New York City medical examiner ruled the death a suicide ^40,41. Two days later FBI agents arrived on Little St. James by boat and helicopter and searched the island ^29,35. His will, signed on August 8, 2019, listed assets of more than US$577 million and directed everything to a trust; the estate is being probated in the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands ^42,43.

On January 15, 2020 the territory, through Attorney General Denise N. George, sued the estate in the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands (No. ST-20-CV-14), alleging that both islands had served as bases of a trafficking enterprise and seeking their forfeiture ^44,24,45. Under the settlement announced on November 30 and December 1, 2022, the estate and its co-defendants pay US$105 million in cash plus half the proceeds from the sale of Little St. James, pay US$450,000 for environmental remediation on Great St. James and return more than US$80 million in tax benefits; the estate had to sell both islands to independent third parties, and the sale proceeds are earmarked for a trust serving Virgin Islands residents who are victims of sexual assault, human trafficking, sexual misconduct and child sexual abuse ^24,46,47,45.

The estate listed both islands on March 23, 2022 at US$125 million, a listing first reported by The Wall Street Journal, while Fortune reported other estimates closer to US$86 million ^5,25,48,49. On May 3, 2023 SD Investments LLC, an investment firm led by Stephen Deckoff, announced that it had acquired both islands; the price, first reported by Forbes and confirmed by The New York Times, CNBC and the St. Thomas Source, was US$60 million, about 52 percent below asking ^50,6,7,51,52. The buyer said he had never met Epstein or set foot on the islands before they were marketed ^50,52. Coverage stated that about US$30 million, half the proceeds, would go to the territory's victims' trust; how the price was split between the islands is not documented ^7,51. As of May 2026, title to Little St. James is held by LSJVI, LLC, a Delaware-registered holding company associated with the buyer ^9,53. The full chronology is in the Epstein Island timeline.

Epstein Island today: a resort on paper, buildings largely unchanged

The May 2023 announcement promised a five-star, 25-room luxury resort anticipated to open in 2025 ^50,6. That has not happened. In March 2026 a DPNR spokesperson said the department had received no plans for a resort on either island, in May 2026 a property spokesperson declined further comment on development, and on September 10, 2026 Newsweek reported that the resort has yet to be built; no resale, new listing or formal abandonment has been reported ^2,9,8,54,10.

The only permit the new owner has sought, as of February 2026, is a Coastal Zone Management major permit filed in December 2025 for an 8,800-square-foot warehouse, replacing an existing metal-framed warehouse with a concrete one over a new cistern; CZM Director Marlon Hibbert said on February 5, 2026 that the application was incomplete because no environmental assessment had been submitted ^54,10. Its status after February 2026 is not documented.

The buildings look much as they did in 2019. A comparison of satellite imagery from 2019 to 2025, published by The Telegraph in August 2025, found the mansion, pools, guest villas and helipad unchanged, one small new structure on the beach, another extending toward the dock and a refilled freshwater reservoir; charter operators saw no construction, and the USVI government had received no planning applications ³⁶. In March 2026 NBC News, reviewing videos filmed by trespassers, described the striped building as painted over and boarded up, with white statues scattered around the property ², and Newsweek noted active private security ¹³.

The most complete official look at the estate came on December 3, 2025, when Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released photographs and short videos that the Government of the U.S. Virgin Islands had taken in 2020 during its civil case: building exteriors, the pool area, the helipad and coastline, bedrooms, kitchens, the striped building, the dock and a beach sign reading no trespassing, with no people in any image ^55,56,57.

Visiting Epstein Island: private property, visible only from the water

Little St. James is private property with no public dock, and caretakers and maintenance workers remain on it ^9,53. Charter and tour boats out of St. Thomas routinely cruise past the island and anchor at Christmas Cove on Great St. James, so both islands can be seen from the water; landing is prohibited ^58,36. Whether the island is visible from a particular spot on St. Thomas has not been confirmed by a major outlet.

The owner enforces this in court. After the arrest in late April 2026 of a trespasser who had rented a dinghy on St. John, and an alleged landing on April 28, 2026 by content creators who filmed themselves on the island, LSJVI, LLC filed a civil complaint in the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands in early May 2026 for civil conspiracy, trespass and private nuisance, and a spokesperson said that going beyond the beach or entering any structure would be prosecuted without exception ^9,53,59. By March 2026 NBC News had counted more than 15 YouTube videos of people sneaking onto the island by rented jet ski, drone or swimming ².

Under the territory's Open Shoreline Act, the beaches and Christmas Cove on Great St. James remain publicly accessible; above the shoreline the land is private ^25,16,60. Drone flights fall under federal FAA rules, and the Virgin Islands Port Authority states that neither it nor the airport towers can issue drone approvals ⁶¹.

• Allowed: viewing the island from a charter or tour boat and anchoring at Christmas Cove on Great St. James ^58,36.
• Not allowed: landing on Little St. James, going beyond the beach or entering any structure; the owner sued alleged trespassers in May 2026 ⁹.
• Drones: FAA rules apply, and the local port authority cannot grant approvals ⁶¹.