A Beatle honeymooned at this exclusive society club in the Bahamas its now open for the first time in decades

Lazing about the palm-planted oceanfront grounds of the Bahamas’ reborn Potlatch Club — the first luxury hotel to open on the long, skinny island of Eleuthera in a decade — it’s hard to believe that just a few years ago, the place looked like Angkor Wat. Jungle vines strangled the ruins of its white-washed bungalows, all but obscuring the remains of Potlatch’s past as a 1960s and’ 70s playground for New York socials, British royals and a couple of Beatles, too. Still, the hotel’s new owners — Caribbean-born high school friends Bruce Loshusan and Hans Febles — saw tremendous potential when they happened upon the place in 2016. “It really was in a bad state,” Loshusan recalled.“Everything was so overgrown.

But then, it opened up onto the most beautiful beach we’d ever seen.We were like, ‘Uh-oh.

We’re in trouble.’ ”Trouble because they knew they couldn’t walk away.Trouble because they knew this would be no small undertaking. But now, after a 7-year rebuild — which resurrected the original high-ceilinged black-and-white-floored clubhouse and a cottage that’s now the spa — the 11-room boutique hotel has emerged for the enjoyment of a new generation of barefoot-chic beachgoers. And that new generation has a fair bit of star-studded, fun-in-the-sun revelry, and intrigue, to live up to.In 1965, a trio of New York socialites teamed up to buy 80 acres of a former pineapple plantation here.

The idea was to create a ravishing but relaxing retreat for themselves and their friends, far away from the maddening crowds and the prying eyes of Manhattan. They called their hideaway the Potlatch Club, adopting the name from a ceremonial feast of native communities in the coastal American Northwest, during which the host would distribute grand gifts — or sometimes even showily destroy their own expensive possessions — as a demonstration of wealth, with the expectation of eventual reciprocation. The choice of the name would turn out ...