Inside the Bahamas island quietly selling $18 million villas—where the vast majority of the land will never be developed

Back in 2008, Mark Holowesko, an investment management CEO who once managed portfolios overseen by the legendary Sir John Templeton, was one of seven owners of Highbourne Cay, a private island at the northern gateway to the Exuma Cays.

Then an oilman from Texas came calling with a plan to put 100 homes on the 500-acre private island in the Bahamas. 

“That just sort of threw me smack at what the Exumas, particularly Highbourne, is all about,” Holowesko told Fortune in an exclusive interview. 

So the families bought him out instead, “basically to stop it from being massively developed,” he added. That’s quite contrary to other luxury spaces across the globe that continue to expand and overdevelop rapidly.

Now, they’re putting a piece of the island on the market. Highbourne has quietly launched sales on just nine fully furnished oceanfront villas starting at $18 million and 10 estate homesites starting at $12 million, each spanning at least 10 acres with a minimum of 430 feet of beachfront property. 

That’s 19 chances for homeownership on one of the most exclusive islands in the Bahamas, spanning 500 acres. But the rest, the owners say, will stay as it is. 

For Holowesko, whose day job is still running global equities at the firm he founded in 2001, the logic is that........

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