Add Page Six on Google An iconic mountaintop property on St. Barts — which was the site of the legendary Les Castelets hotel-restaurant, where Jackie-O, Richard Nixon, Mikhail Baryshnikov, David Bowie and Liza Minnelli all stayed — was quietly sold 18 months ago. A new tell-all on the island reveals the new “queen of the mountain” is Laurie-Lynn Stark, co-founder of Chrome Hearts, Hollywood’s go-to goth rock fashion brand.
In his latest tome, “Treasured Island: The Story of St. Barth…and its Barbarians, Billionaires and Beauties,” out from Harper, high-society author Michael Gross reveals that the fashion maven snapped up the three-acre site atop Lurin — the A-list island’s highest mountain — by buying the company that owned the spot rather than just the land itself.
The sale was allegedly kept hush-hush behind a series of NDAs, reports Gross.
We’ve reached out to a Chrome Hearts rep, while we hear the broker is Zarek Honneysett of Sibarth Real Estate, who has not commented on the sale either.
Built by a German shipping heir, Les Castelets’ next owner was a Wall Street arbitrageur who in 1992 gave an option to buy the place to Pino Luongo, the Tuscan restaurateur behind New York’s Il Cantinori and Le Madri and the Hamptons’ Sapore di Mare.
Hurricane Luis then destroyed the place in 1995, and Luongo walked away.
After years of battles with insurance companies, his first wife and a French manager, Gross reports, the Wall Streeter sold the decimated spot for $5 million to The Atlantic magazine’s owner, Washington D.C. multi-millionaire David Bradley.
But when neighbors thwarted his building plans, he flipped it — tripling his money— to the owners of another island hotel, the Eden Rock, aka England’s Matthews family, whose scion James is married to Pippa Middleton, and Ferit Şahenk, one of Turkey’s richest men.
Stark, who owns several properties on St. Barth, didn’t respond to the author either, but allegedly plans have been filed for three luxury villas on her mountaintop, according to Gross.
Gross’ book is also being released in the UK today.
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