Oracabessa travel guide

Oracabessa is a small town in St Mary, Jamaica 10 miles (16 km) east of Ocho Rios. Its population was 4,108 in 2009. It is a friendly town with a covered produce market and a few shops and bars. The main street is a pleasant and graceful promenade with a number of well-maintained buildings in the early 20th century Jamaican vernacular tradition.

To the east Oracabessa merges into a residential community which is the site of luxury villas such as Goldeneye, Golden Clouds and Firefly Estate, once the home of Noël Coward. To the immediate west of Oracabessa is the village of Boscobel, home of Boscobel Aerodrome, Jamaica's newest international airport .

One of Oracabessa's most well-known residents is artist Richard Von White, grandson of W.E. White a self-made man, baker, planter and Oracabessa's leading citizen in the early 1900s. Von's brilliantly hued, evocative canvasses reflect the tropical flora that is the source of his inspiration. Other notable residents of Oracabessa include legendary music producer Chris Blackwell and bestselling author Colin Simpson. Blackwell owns Goldeneye villa, original home of author Ian Fleming, who wrote many of the James Bond novels while living in Oracabessa. Simpson owns Golden Clouds villa and is the great-great grandson of renowned slavery abolitionist James Phillippo.

A centre for the export of bananas until the early 1900s, Oracabessa became something of a ghost town when the wharves around the small natural harbour closed, taking with them the rum bars, gambling houses and most of the workers.

In the 1920s, the arrival of Ruth Bryan Owen brought a new focus to the tiny village. Owen began construction on her magnificent home, Golden Clouds, while her husband [7], a British Army officer stationed in Jamaica built roads and schools. Owen was the first female American Ambassador, and the daughter of prominent U.S. politician William Jennings Bryan. She had many influential friends in politics and entertainment, who visited her regularly in Oracabessa. One such visitor was Charlie Chaplin, who was her guest at Golden Clouds.

In 1946, Ian Fleming purchased a plot of land and built Goldeneye. The arrival of Fleming brought many celebrities to Oracabessa, and new-found international recognition as a tourist destination.

James Bond BeachIn the mid-1990s, the Island Outpost corporation owned by Chris Blackwell bought seventy acres of prime coastal land and opened the village's main attraction, the James Bond Beach Club. Located just off Main Street along Old Wharf Road, this pretty strip of white sand has brightly painted changing rooms, a water sports centre, a bar and a restaurant. Its expansive lawns are a regular venue for concerts by local and international artists. Scenes from the classic James Bond movie Dr. No, which features a young and beautiful Ursala Andress were filmed at James Bond Beach.

In the 21st century, Oracabessa has become known as an artist community with studios operated by musicians, painters, and carvers. Art galleries in Oracabessa include Von White's studio, and the Wilderness House of Art. Oracabessa has a wide range of musicians who live, record, and perform in the area. The music group UB40 has a studio in Oracabessa, and large reggae concerts are presented at James Bond Beach with artists such as Rihanna, Ziggy Marley and Lauryn Hill performing....read more