Great St. James: the second island, the stop-work order and a hidden purchase

What Great St. James is

Great St. James sits directly beside Little St. James off the east end of St. Thomas and, at about 161 acres, is more than twice the size of its better known neighbour ¹⁰.

Locally it is known above all for Christmas Cove, an anchorage on its western side that day boats and yachts from St. Thomas head for ¹¹. Unlike Little St. James it was never continuously developed.

For the public it is therefore the more accessible half of the story: a boat trip usually means anchoring off Great St. James and looking across at Little St. James ¹¹.

Geology and ground cover: rock, salt ponds, one beach

Size figures vary: about 160 acres in the permit file, 161.3 in the 2022 listing, 165 in older accounts; the two islands together are quoted at more than 230 acres ^21,3.

The ground explains much of what followed. A 2005 commentary cites a U.S. soil survey finding roughly 60 percent of the surface to be boulders, stones or rock outcrops on steep slopes, fit for neither building nor farming ¹³. Development starts by cutting tracks into the hillside, and those tracks became the department's central complaint ^13,4.

Four salt ponds are designated Areas of Particular Concern, feeding grounds for herons, sandpipers and rare ducks ¹³. A rare cactus grows on the cliffs, a fringing reef lies off the north-east cove, and that cove holds the only true beach on the island, a nesting ground for green turtles, a federally listed threatened species ¹³.

The 2020 complaint puts it in legal terms: both islands are environmentally sensitive places with coral and wildlife protected under federal and territorial law ²⁰. Reefs, water supply and storm damage next door are covered in nature and environment.

Christmas Cove and the St. James marine reserve

A 2005 commentary called Christmas Cove, on the west and south-west side, one of the best known and most accessible anchorages in the Caribbean, and the 2022 listing report described the island as largely undeveloped with the cove as a marine preserve ^13,21.

Its official name is the St. James Marine Reserve and Wildlife Sanctuary, one of three reserves in the St. Thomas East End Reserves, which cover 9.6 square kilometres of mangroves, salt ponds, lagoons, reefs and cays; the others are Cas Cay with the Mangrove Lagoon and Compass Point Salt Pond ¹⁴.

The rules are tight. Inside the reserve the only permitted take is baitfish caught with a cast net within 50 feet of the shoreline, Cow and Calf Rocks excluded, and that needs a monthly permit from the enforcement division ¹⁵. A database of marine protected areas lists it as heavily restrictive: commercial gear and spear fishing are banned, hook and line fishing needs a permit ¹⁶.

For the building inspectors that status was the lever: development in the coastal zone needs coastal zone management consent ^20,3. What boaters may do and where access stops is in can you visit the island.

The purchase nobody could trace

In January 2016 the island changed hands in two steps: first three parcels of just over 80 acres for $17.5 million, three days later twelve more parcels of just over 81 acres for $5 million, $22.5 million in total, through an entity set up for the purpose ².

Epstein's name did not appear in the public ownership records for years ². According to records reviewed by the Miami Herald and McClatchy, the previous owner did not want to sell to him, so an opaque company was created that made it look in negotiations as if the buyer were a businessman from Dubai, reportedly without that person's knowledge ².

The Virgin Islands Attorney General later put the purchase into the territory's complaint. It reads that the island closest to Little St. James was acquired to keep what happened there out of sight and to prevent detection by law enforcement or the public ²⁰.

Good to knowWhen checking ownership questions, always ask which company stands behind a purchase. In the territory many deals run through entities whose members are not on the deed.

The department's orders, step by step

The summer 2016 settlement carried a condition: if unpermitted work resumed, the full $280,000 would revive ³. Epstein signed on 22 July 2016, the coastal zone director on 1 August, and the reduced $70,000 arrived on 5 August ^3,5.

Three months later the condition broke: an internal memo of 31 October 2016 demanded complete removal of the helipad, a notice to cure the breach was served on 4 November, and the deadline ran to 18 November after an extension. On 22 November the concrete and rock driveway and the beach bar were still standing, the driveway widened further; on 15 December 2016 the department called in the remaining $210,000 ³.

That sum was never paid. In June 2017 both sides signed a supplemental agreement putting an environmental project in its place: $160,000 towards repairing a raveling wall at Fort Christian, again without admission of wrongdoing ¹⁸. Three cheques for that amount sit in the file, dated 6 June, 7 July and 11 July 2017; two were made out to a heritage trust on St. Thomas, which said in August 2019 it never received them ¹⁸.

After the stop-work order of 21 December 2018 the file stayed administrative. In July 2019 the assistant commissioner said at least four minor permit applications and one major jetty application were pending, that one jetty already built was to be removed, and that a site visit by eight to ten staff from four divisions was planned ⁴.

Whether the threatened penalties of more than a million dollars were ever levied is not documented ^1,4.

What was meant to be built

The application of early 2017 shows a compound spread across the whole island and linked by a private road: a barge dock, two homes, further cottages, an amphitheater, gardens, a marine electrical cable, a solar array with generator, a storage building, a security building, a workshed and an underwater office and pool ³.

The filing included mitigation for endangered corals and for the Virgin Islands tree boa, and recorded that access to the shoreline including Christmas Cove would stay public ³.

Little of it was approved. According to the department in July 2019, only a single minor permit had been granted on Great St. James, for a flagpole and the repair of cisterns ⁴.

What was actually built

What went up was mostly groundwork and outbuildings: roads, a helipad, two jetties, a paved driveway and a beach bar ^1,5.

The planned houses never appeared. At the time of Epstein's death in August 2019 no compound had been completed, and the 2022 sales listing described the island as far less developed than Little St. James ^11,10.

The authorities saw the main environmental problem not in the buildings but in erosion caused by the many cut roads ⁴.

Who held the file and why enforcement stalled

Responsibility sits with the territory's Department of Planning and Natural Resources and its coastal zone management division. The 2020 complaint spells out that role and records repeated penalties for breaches of building and environmental law on both islands ²⁰.

The same complaint says why that achieved little: the sums were substantial for the agency and an average resident, and not for an owner of that wealth ²⁰. The inspections were contested too: the government pleads that the companies repeatedly tried to block unannounced site visits and called them an intrusion on privacy, treating the whole island as a home ²⁰.

The corporate structure was built around permits: Great St. Jim, LLC was organised on 26 October 2015, barely three months before the purchase, and a certificate filed with the department authorised Poplar, Inc. to handle permitting matters on its behalf ²⁰.

All of this can still only be checked at second hand. The 2016 deeds, the July 2016 consent agreement and the orders that followed are not published; amounts and dates come from the coastal zone file as reviewed by the territory's daily paper ^3,18. Even the purchase date is unsettled: the file gives 18 and 21 January 2016, the complaint 28 January from the Recorder of Deeds ^3,20.

The federal level arrived late and referred the October 2019 findings back to the territorial department for enforcement ⁶. How the suits, settlements and investigations around the islands developed is set out in the proceedings.

Historical remains and environmental damage

The island held remains from the colonial period. The Virgin Islands Attorney General found that historical structures from the era of slavery had been razed to make room for the development ^9,12.

A 2005 commentary describes what lay on the north side of Christmas Cove: an eighteenth-century cotton plantation of about ten acres, a coral-stone wall built by enslaved people, and an underground tank holding 9,000 gallons of water ¹³.

The island was then on the market at $25 million, and the piece warned only a large developer could afford it for a hotel ¹³. Eleven years later it went to a single buyer ².

That is why the 2022 settlement earmarks $450,000 for environmental remediation on Great St. James ⁹. It is the only item of the settlement that applies expressly to this island ⁹.

The Attorney General's release names neither the plantation nor the individual structures razed ⁹.

Which traces survive today, and what the remediation covered in detail, is not documented ^9,12.

The 2022 settlement and what has happened since

On 15 January 2020 the territorial government sued the estate in the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands. The complaint lists both islands as instruments of the alleged enterprise and asks for their forfeiture to the government ²⁰.

The case ended in late November 2022. The settlement provides for $105 million in cash, half the proceeds from the sale of Little St. James, $450,000 for remediating environmental damage around Great St. James, and the return of more than $80 million in economic-development tax benefits ⁹. The half-proceeds clause applies expressly to the smaller island, where Epstein lived ⁹.

The settlement also obliged the estate to sell both islands to independent third parties ⁹. They were listed together on 23 March 2022 at $125 million, the marketing calling Great St. James largely untouched ²¹. On 3 May 2023 both went to the same buyer for $60 million, set out in the 2023 sale; what became of the proceeds is in money and taxes ¹⁰.

Little has happened on Great St. James since. In February 2026 the territory's daily paper reported that the announced resort had not materialised and that the new owner's only building application was for a warehouse on Little St. James ¹⁹. In April 2026 the department's commissioner told a senator's inquiry that applications pending from Epstein's time lapsed automatically with the sale and that nobody had asked to transfer the permits already issued ¹⁷.

What remains is the fight over access: according to secondary reports of a Business Insider investigation, the owning entity had sued nine people by August 2026 over unauthorised entry onto both islands ²².

A finding from 2026

In February 2026 CNN published text messages from 2019 in which the governor of the Virgin Islands, Albert Bryan Jr., told Epstein he had asked for enforcement of the stop-work order to be paused and had asked the responsible commissioner to step aside ⁷.

Questioned under oath in 2023 about special treatment, the governor had said no. In early March 2026 he said he supports an inquiry and denies wrongdoing ^7,8.

None of that changes the violations on record, but it shows how closely the administration of a small territory was entangled with a single landowner ⁷.