Petit St. Vincent

The hotel provides the public with little information about its history. Our team researches the hotel's past, from the very beginning, verifying its exact opening date and providing an overview of its history up to the present day.?If you have any useful information and would like to share it, please send it to archives@famoushotels.org.?Thank you This is what we know so far (attention: unverified history!): PSV is not owned by a resort chain. It is the personal creation of Haze Richardson, who lives on the island with his wife Lynn and their seven yellow labs. Chances are he will be on the dock to greet you, and will often spend time chatting at the bar in the evening. Haze and Lynn’s picture of what makes a perfect island hideaway permeates every detail of PSV. Petit St.Vincent is the Richardson’s own home which they share with guests who return again and again. In 1962 Haze finished his tour with the air force and with a flying buddy, Doug Terman, bought a yacht and sailed off into the horizon with no timetable or final destination. Their sailboat was the Jacinta, designed by Samuel Crocker and built in Massachusetts in 1931 of mahagony over oak frames. A seventy seven foot schooner, she had sitka spruce masts and magnificent lines. They sailed from New York to Bermuda and then headed south to the islands. En route, they met an agent who agreed to sell charters on their boat. Their first customer was a Mr. H.W. Nichols and family of Cincinnati, to be picked up in Grenada and cruise to Martinique. During the three week cruise Mr. Nichols expressed a desire to purchase an island. The following year Haze and Doug sailed the Grenadine chain in search of that island. They anchored at the then uninhabited Petit St.Vincent and learned from the people on neighboring islands that it was owned by a lady living high up on the hill on nearby Petit Martinique. It was rumored however, that she would never part with her island. Finally allowing them into her home to talk, she liked them and eventually agreed to sell. Arrangements were made between Mr. Nichols, Doug and Haze to purchase the island and build a small hotel. And so it was that in May 1966 they returned to PSV and began to clear the necessary land. Life in those days, even in the Grenadines, was not easy. There was no water, electricity, food or communication. They had only the marine radio on Jacinta, where they lived for the next seven months. Their commute however, was only the short ride to the beach and their meals were caught to order (literally!) by the cook who dived off Jacinta for lobster, fish or conch, with only a few minutes notice. Haze and Doug's mission was to build the hotel and find a manager for it. But before completion in December 1968, Mr. Nichols asked Haze to stay on as a "temporary" manager. He did, and now, thirty years later, Haze is the owner and manager of his own vision of paradise.