Thirty years after a chance boat trip from Antigua, the actor Robert De Niro is opening the luxury Caribbean bolthole he’s been dreaming of ever since – and on the same Barbudan beach Princess Diana called her favourite, no less.
De Niro was looking for lunch when he found his next obsession. It was the early 1990s, and the actor had taken a boat from Antigua across the channel to a sister island he couldn’t have placed on a map.
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He stepped onto a beach of sugar-fine sand stretching unbroken for two miles, the Atlantic an electric blue out front. He didn’t know it then, but he had landed on Princess Diana Beach – named for the royal who had sought refuge at the K Club resort that once stood on the site.
“I came on a boat from Antigua for lunch one day and I didn’t even know what the island was, but I never forgot the beach,” De Niro recalled in an interview, more than three decades on. “It was just beautiful. I thought that if I ever did a resort, this could be the place.”
A joint venture – and love letter to Barbuda
That hunch is now a US $250 million reality, The Beach Club. It began when the K Club site came available in 2014 and De Niro and his long-time partner, Australian billionaire James Packer, decided to take over the 400-acre lease.
The duo were later joined by British hotelier Daniel Shamoon, who De Niro had met when opening a Nobu restaurant inside Shamoon’s Puente Romano in Marbella.
Together they are building The Beach Club, Barbuda: a private community anchored by Nobu Beach Inn, the latest outpost of the billion-dollar empire De Niro has spent a quarter-century co-creating with chef Nobu Matsuhisa.
It’s also, unmistakably, his own. De Niro, who serves as special economic envoy for Antigua and Barbuda, has long kept a modest cottage on the property – “very simple, just a one-level beach house” – and is now demolishing it to build a slightly larger home for himself, his partner Tiffany Chen and their two-year-old daughter Gia.
All three founding partners will have personal properties on the site, reinforcing each of their personal commitment to the project.
Shamoon said De Niro’s vision shows up across all elements of the club’s masterplan and embodies the actor’s character: “It’s humble,” Shamoon added. “You have all the elements of a luxury resort, but you don’t need to show them off.”
A showcase in low-density eco-conscious design
That ethos drives the design. Nobu Beach Inn, opening in 2027, will comprise 17 single-storey villas – 36 bedrooms in all – hidden among the dense planting of Miami landscape architect Raymond Jungles.
There is an omakase sushi bar, an indoor and outdoor spa, tennis and padel courts, a kids’ club, and a fleet of classic sailboats and motor yachts for snorkelling trips, beach picnics and voyages to neighbouring islands.
Bungalows start at $2,500 a night, with a dedicated host and breakfast by a private chef. The residential offering is broader still.
Twenty-five Nobu Beach Inn Residences – fully serviced, 5,000 to 6,000 square feet, with 100 feet of beach frontage – start at $12 million. Twenty-three Beach Club Villas, on one-acre plots with 150 feet of beachfront, start at $7 million. Seven Beach Club Estates sprawl across six acres apiece, with up to 480 feet of private sand, from $15 million.
Owners share The Clubhouse, a private beach club with its own oceanfront pool, gym, restaurant and bar. The whole thing runs off-grid, on a hybrid of solar and LNG with battery storage, desalinated well water and a working farm feeding the restaurants.
A special emphasis has been placed on local provenance, most importantly of which is the hiring of local Barbudan staff.
Today, many have been promoted into leadership roles and train at Shamoon’s Spanish hotels in the off season, while a community fund – topped up by homeowner dues and optional guest contributions – channels money into local education, infrastructure and small business.
How an airport unlocked a new Caribbean frontier
For decades the obstacle was simply getting there. Hurricane Irma flattened Barbuda in 2017, forcing all 1,600 residents to evacuate; in De Niro’s own beach house, the sea pushed furniture out the back window, though, as he likes to point out, a single box of tissues on the kitchen table somehow survived untouched.
The bigger turning point came in late 2024, with the opening of Burton-Nibbs International Airport – a runway De Niro himself had quietly pushed for. It now accepts private jets and inter-island charters, putting Barbuda a ten-minute hop from Antigua’s V.C. Bird, and a non-stop flight from New York, Miami or London.
That access has changed everything. Prime Minister Gaston Browne has publicly described his ambition to make Barbuda a “Jumby Bay on steroids” back in 2023, and the market responded has since responded accordingly.
Lots at The Beach Club have been selling steadily since launch; further along the coastline, Discovery Land’s Barbuda Ocean Club is drawing a similar UHNW crowd.
Why the Caribbean’s quietest island is now an emerging asset class
The island’s shift toward ultra-prime status is backed by a surge in “legacy-grade” investment signals, which are positioning Barbuda as one of the Caribbean’s most exclusive frontiers.
Market data for 2026 reveals that the island is no longer just a satellite to Antigua but a primary destination for capital flight among the global elite.
With capital appreciation for premium beachfront villas in the region currently averaging up to 12% annually, the entry of branded residences like Rosewood Barbuda alongside De Niro’s Nobu Beach Inn has created a rare scarcity premium.
Analysts note that properties offering a managed “invisible hotel” model now command gross yields between 5% and 8%, as demand for eco-conscious turnkey luxury outruns supply.
A national tax regime underscored by no capital gains or inheritance tax makes it an even more attractive proposition for buyers in the long run; the $7m–$15m pricing for Beach Club residences a sophisticated fiscal hedge.
The island’s low-density, off-grid master plan has successfully helped break Barbuda away from the Caribbean’s mass-luxury market, towards a highly exclusive high-yield opportunity for a profile of discerning UHNW buyer looking for something that much more special.
So the Caribbean’s quietest island has, almost overnight, become one of its most coveted new addresses. And that buzz is only growing louder. But for De Niro, however, the appeal hasn’t changed in 30 years. “It’s very quiet,” he says. “It’s nice. There aren’t many people there. The donkeys come up to me, that’s it.”
Learn more about The Beach Club, Barbuda: thebeachclub.com
