Plush Playground

Axel Wenner-Gren, one of the world's richest men, stretched his long legs in the lower-deck lounge of a New York-to-Nassau Stratocruiser last week and reflected with satisfaction on the progress of his newest enterprise. In his 73 years, Wenner-Gren has made fortunes in Electrolux vacuum cleaners and refrigerators, Bofors antiaircraft guns and Mexican telephones. But of late, his major interest has been building a fabulous tropical resort worthy of the monocled titles and Palm Beach socialites that Swedish-born Wenner-Gren (who started his career at 15-c- an hour in a New Jersey tractor factory) finds congenial.

For his plush playground, Wenner-Gren in 1951 picked flat Andros, biggest (104 miles long) of the Bahama Islands. Andros has not prospered much since pirate times; the population, mostly Negro, is still under 10,000. But it has splendid white beaches, a sunny, breeze-cooled climate and enough bonefish, wahoo, tarpon, blue teal, ducks and wild pigs to win rave notices from rod-and-gun editors. Spending $2,000,000, Wenner-Gren built a luxurious Lighthouse Club (with appointments in silver) and a well-fitted yacht club. The resort opened last month.

Wenner-Gren's associates prudently hired an obeah (Bahamian voodoo) ghost (-L-10 from a local ghost renter) to assure success at the opening. As any obeah-minded Bahamian could have predicted, this precaution worked; the ghost, one Richard Crotch in life, worked silently and invisibly to bring the necessary luck. Such corporeal visitors as Prince and Princess Alexis Obolensky, Mrs. Winston Guest, Sir Victor Sassoon, Mrs. Bernard Gimbel and Metropolitan Opera Tenor Jussi Bjoerling materialized from amphibians that made 40 nights in and out. Other guests, before and since: Danny Kaye, the Countess of Leicester, Brenda Frazier Kelly. All applauded what the ghost and Wenner-Gren had wrought. Much bucked up, the white-haired financier decided last week to pour another $1,500,000 into Andros Town this year, and as much as $10 million eventually.

Andros Town is not for just any casual traveler with money. "We don't want tourists," Wenner-Gren explains. One joins the Andros set by joining the Lighthouse Club. The club's initiation fee of $500, dues of $300 a year and minimum American plan rate of $50 a day are only the low hurdles. The applicant must also pass the scrutiny of the board of governors: Wenner-Gren, the Hon. Mrs. Audrey Pleydell-Bouverie, Eunice, Lady Oakes, Sir Oswald Bancroft and seven other Mayfair and Florida social arbiters. If he gets by without a blackball, and would like to settle on the island, the new member may then sign up for a homesite--at $10,000 an acre.

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