VIE Magazine September 2018

Deutsch’s stepfather, Gernot Langes-Swarovski of the Austrian crystal-making dynasty, bought the island as a vacation home for his family in the 1980s, but over the years, only Deutsch felt a compulsion to return.

“No matter where I was in the world, I always had a yearning to come back here, and when I met Sandra, she felt that pull, too,” he says. “We felt we could do something special on the island by tapping into its serenity and spirituality to create a retreat for guests, while at the same time working with artisans to take the island back to a different time.”

The fruits of their labor are abundantly evident during my walk around the island, which measures just one mile in circumference. My amble takes a little over an hour. I see the orchards that are now yielding a generous harvest, the hives that last year produced the island’s first honey in decades, the free-running chickens that supply the best eggs I have ever tasted, and the wild peacocks that treat me to a spectacle I hope never to forget when they lurch into flight.