📍GoldenEye, Oracabessa, St Mary, Jamaica
1946 – 1964“I grew up in London and Scotland in the shadow of a brilliant elder brother and a formidable mother; my father was killed in the First World War when I was eight. In wartime naval intelligence I came to Jamaica on a mission and swore I would live there. In 1946 I bought fifteen acres on a headland at Oracabessa on the island's north coast — the land had once been a donkey racetrack — and built a plain, simple house on the edge of a cliff above a small private cove. I called it GoldenEye. Every January and February I escaped the London winter to come here; I swam and snorkelled the reef below the house each morning, watching the fish I later wrote about, then sat at the desk in my bedroom and typed. On 17 February 1952 I began Casino Royale here, and over the next twelve years I wrote every one of my James Bond novels at that desk. My friend Noël Coward rented the house before building his own place, Firefly, along the coast. GoldenEye is now a resort, and the original villa and my writing desk remain at its heart.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📷 Location image · via Wikimedia Commons