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In addition to hundreds of British and Canadian firms, an estimated 26 U.S. companies are operating out of Nassau suitcases. The Bethlehem Steel Corp. lurks behind a mahogany shingle reading, "The Registered Office of Bethlehem Steel Co. Limited, Overseas Underwriters Limited." Similar shingles hang outside Nassau offices of outfits such as Crucible Steel, U.S. Steel (which calls itself Navios), Whirlpool, Cummins Diesel, RCA, J. I. Case (agricultural equipment) and Grant Advertising. Outboard Marine International (Evinrude and Johnson outboard motors) has a staff of 55, including U.S. citizens, Englishmen, Canadians and a handful of Bahamian Comptometer operators. In air-conditioned comfort behind a Bay Street brass plate, Outboard Representative James Butler says: "We are a completely international company. Europeans come here on business to see our motors. Our salesmen travel from Nassau to all parts of the world."
Private Lives. But the Bahamas are a personal haven for the rich as well as a corporate haven for foreign companies. Clint Murchison Jr. soaks up the sun on a private island hideaway at Spanish Cay (rhymes with fee). Standard Oil Heiress Marion Carstairs and her half brother Francis Francis bought adjoining Whale Cay and Bird Cay. Longtime Alcoa Board Chairman Arthur Vining Davis built expensive Rock Sound Club, a public hotel, on Eleuthera. While he was at it, Davis put up the truly private Cotton Bay Golf Club (among the members: Laurance Rockefeller, General Nathan Twining), complete with Robert Trent Jones-designed $600,000 golf course, and bought 25,000 acres of pink-beached paradise. Last week he was closing a deal to sell a sizable chunk of his acreage to a combine headed by Pan American World Airways President Juan Trippe. Howard Hughes controls Cay Sal, closest island (50 miles) to Cuba.
Coke & Beer. On central New Providence Island, nine new hotels have sprung up in the past five years. The Howard Johnson-run Nassau Beach Lodge opened in February; rushing to completion is Lyford Cay, a combination club-real estate development masterminded by international beer baron and financier Edward Plunket Taylor of Toronto. In 1955 Taylor paid $2,000,000 for 4,000 acres of underbrush 17 miles west of Nassau, making him the second biggest landowner on New Providence (after Eunice Lady Oakes and her children, heirs to the 7,000 acres of the late Sir Harry Oakes). He has laid out $3,500,000 on land improvement, and is building a $2,000,000 clubhouse that has already been paid for by the sale of more than fifty 1½-acre plots (top price: $75,000). Four miles from Taylor's project is the Coral Harbour Club, bankrolled to the tune of $2,000,000 by the widow and children of Coca-Cola Co. Director Lindsey Hopkins.