Richard Branson's story of Necker Island

I first heard about it when I was 27 years old and I was chasing joan so i pretended i wanted to buy an island and the estate agent laid on a house and helicopter for me and then we came down for the weekend saw this beautiful island from the air and put in a ridiculous e to offer for it but about a year later they rang me up and said that nobody else had come to see and see the island and if I upped the offer two hundred and twenty thousand dollars we could have it so we bought it on that basis but then of course it was going to cost millions to actually develop fortunately the record company became you know the most successful independent record company in the world and over the next few years we managed to get the resources together to make it what it is today there was nothing on the island we first came here the only inhabitants had ever been here were the Carib Indians hundreds of years before we actually found some care of Indian arrowheads on this path they left no no trace of mankind well to telegraph journalists we're told to find a deserted island and see how long they could survive and they chose Necker Island and within a couple of days they were radioing for help to get them off the island they'd come back to the island since and we couldn't get them off the only buildings we've ready got is the the great house which has just been completed we've got our house on on the hill here we've got barley low and barley high in the distance over there so we've kept the kept the buildings to a minimum it's enough for about 40 people to stay on the island at one time anything more than that I think would spoil it my original plans for Necker was actually to turn it into recording studio I didn't continue with that plan instead decided to turn it into a place where wonderful interesting people could come debate issues think and have a great time and I'm quite glad actually that that's where we ended up the most extraordinary people come to Mecca the elders was conceived here on Necker with Archbishop Tutu with President Carter with Kofi Annan the carbon war room was conceived here an organization that tries to work with industry to try to extract carbon out of the Earth's atmosphere things like Virgin Galactic you know sitting in my hammock looking up at the stars at night his thought surely in my lifetime I should be able to go to space surely my friend should be able to go to space my children's real to go to space so great place to think and the great place to conceive ideas NECA really has been my home for about thirty years it's the place where you know Sam Holley grew up as place we've got married place my daughter got married and you know it's the place that we get away from it all to relax as a banyan and spend time with neurosis friends Diana and the kids in particular used to come here quite a lot when the kids were young and use Necker as an escape a place where they could get away from the paparazzi and they could bring their family and friends and let the hair down it's good isn't it what have you got until today it was 2011 there was a hurricane it was 2 a.m. in the morning lightning hit this house 300 foot flames erupted out of the house my mother was 88 the time kate winslet was good enough to sweep her up into her arms and carry her out and I remember saying to Kate's kids things don't matter in life you know the fact that everybody's well is all that matters and it's on moments like that you realize that things really don't matter and then the next day while the fire was still burning we got out of massive sheet of white paper and we started planning the new house we've reintroduced species on to Mecca that used to exist in the British Virgin Islands and I think that's very important for most species they're in peril there should be a few in captivity make sure the surroundings are absolutely beautiful for them then you can be assured of the species future we're turning necker island into a few months from now will be almost carbon neutral so we're putting up windmills we're putting a lot more solar on the island and we want to be able to show the British Virgin Islands and you know other Caribbean governments that by turning to clean energy you can also save your people quite a lot on their electricity bills and put less carbon out into the Earth's atmosphere but at Nagar is home I mean the other places that we created are equally magnificent in their own way but Necker is home and they're from something particularly special about this little jewel you

Channel: VirginLimitedEdition

Views: 260,543

Keywords: richardbranson, neckerisland, necker, necker island, virgin, virgin limited edition, richard branson, private island, British Virgin Islands, BVI, BVIs, paradise, luxury island, luxury travel, luxury, caribbean, caribbean travel

Id: STCqSXCbbcw

Length: 6min 26sec (386 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 28 2014