H.G. Christie Ltd. is synonymous with Real Estate in the Bahamas having been founded in 1922 by the late Sir Harold Christie kt. C.B.E. who was the greatest promoter of Bahamas Real Estate and Tourism from the 1920's till his death in 1973 during a promotional tour of Germany. Sir Harold was joined early on by his brother Frank Holmes Christie C.B.E., and together they were instrumental in the creation of many of the major resort developments of today. From Lyford Cay in New Providence, Windermere Island on Eleuthera, Great Harbour Cay in the Berry Islands to Hawksnest Creek and Pigeon Cay in Cat Island. Sir Harold (who had joined the Canadian Airforce in the First World War) founded Bahamas Airways Ltd. to connect the out islands, which he loved and promoted all his life.

Sir Harold can be best described by a brief article on him in the Lyford Cay Property Owners Association newsletter , written by Arthur Haley.

"A native born Bahamian, he loved his country with a passion. Christie was also an active social figure of his times, gregarious, affable, and with wide-ranging friendships at every social level. Stories and rumors still revolve around his vibrant private life.

His life began modestly, however, in a home with a large family and very little money. The father of Harold Christie, and two younger brothers and five sisters was Henry Christopher Christie, an eccentric poet and evangelist who according to his second son Percy was "uninterested in Money and simply decided that he wasn't going to work." Instead, he went on preaching trips in the Bahamas lasting four or five weeks, though he must have been home a good deal since The Bahamas Handbook of 1979 notes that Henry's wife Margaret Alice " endured 21 pregnancies."

Margaret Christie was a practical woman who determinedly supported her family, first with a straw-basket business, then by buying and selling real estate in Nassau and Florida. Harold, it is recorded, adored his mother.

"Not Particularly Bright"

Harold Christie attended school in Nassau, and later described himself as "not a bad student, but not a particularly bright one". In 1912, at age 16, he went to New York where he found temporary but uninteresting work, and a year later moved to Canada. He enlisted in the Canadian Air Force, and was briefly a cadet pilot, but did not gain his wings. The experience, though, gave him a lifelong interest in aviation, and he was involved in the forming of Bahamas Airways in 1935.

In 1921, however, he returned to Nassau, reportedly as broke as when he left nine years earlier, but within a year, his fortunes had reversed. In 1922, he formed H.G. Christie Real Estate and was in the business, which would dominate the remainder of his life.

Real Estate Foresight

Godfrey W. Higgs, a distinguished member of the Bahamas bar, is quoted as saying of Harold Christie, "As a real estate agent, he could smell a commission thousand of miles away, and was merciless in collecting it."

And Reginald Walker, Christie's personal assistant for 23 years: "He could look at a piece of real estate in the Bahamas and immediately visualize what it would become if sufficient capital were invested in it."

Undoubtedly, that second ability aroused Christie's interest in two large parcels of land in west New Providence, totaling about 2,800 acres and including beautiful beaches. It also included the 448 acres granted a century a half earlier by King George III to William Lyford Jr.

Objective Unfulfilled

In 1947, Christie sold the land to Chester Beatty, a wealthy English investor, then in 1954 decided he wanted it back and repurchased it for himself.

Harold Christie's objective was to develop the land as a resort, but he was limited by two factors. One, he didn't know how to manage such a large-scale development. Two, he had insufficient money. It was said of him through much of his business life that he was perpetually "land rich, cash poor".

Because of both factors Christie approached a Canadian entrepreneur, E.P. Taylor, who had become interested in the Bahamas, and suggested a partnership. Taylor declined the partnership, but in 1956, bought the land through his own companies and, while acquiring still more land, began developing the present Lyford Cay.

A House and Marriage

While excluded from the development process, Harold Christie retained a portion of land, "The Point", at the Cay's West End on which he built a cottage, and later an elegant home.

For much of his life, while enjoying women's company, Christie remained a committed bachelor, but in 1960 married Mrs. Virginia Johnson, an interior designer. "He made a good adjustment to marriage," she once reported with affection. "He was easy to live with, very gentle and kind."

While Harold Christie liked to earn money, according to Godfrey Higgs, "he was generous to a fault." Another friend, Prince Hepburn, described him as, "One of the most unselfish and generous men I ever met."

Christie was awarded a C.B.E. in 1949, and a knighthood in 1964.

He died of a heart attack on September 27, 1973, in Hamburg, while setting up an office intended to attract German investors to the Bahamas."

The company was inherited in 1978 by William McP. (Peter) Christie following Frank Christie's death. Peter Christie was a prominent member of the Bahamas Bar for forty years specializing in property matters, and he retired from the prestigious law firm of Higgs and Johnson to manage H.G. Christie Ltd. in 1991. In 1993 his son, John Christie joined the company as Vice President, and together they have taken the company into the 21st Century.