The Cloister

Frommer's Review

Located in the Versailles Gardens of the One&Only Ocean Club, this 12th-century cloister built by Augustinian monks in southwestern France was reassembled here stone by stone. Huntington Hartford, the A&P heir, purchased the cloister from the estate of William Randolph Hearst at San Simeon in California. Regrettably, after the newspaper czar originally bought the cloister, it was hastily dismantled in France for shipment to America. However, the parts had not been numbered -- they all arrived unlabeled on Paradise Island. The reassembly of the complicated monument baffled most conventional methods of construction until artist and sculptor Jean Castre-Manne set about to reassemble it piece by piece. It took him 2 years, and what you see today presumably bears some similarity to the original. The gardens, which extend over the rise to Nassau Harbour, are filled with tropical flowers and classic statues. Although the monument retains a timeless beauty, recent buildings have encroached on either side, marring Huntington Hartford's original vision.

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