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Cat Cay

North Cat Cay Breakwater Lighthouse
Cat Cays is located in Bahamas
Cat Cays
Bahams
Location North Cat Cay
Bimini
Bahamas
Coordinates 25°33′22.5″N 79°16′37.7″W / 25.556250°N 79.277139°W / 25.556250; -79.277139
Year first constructed 1933
Construction masonry tower
Tower shape conical frustum tower with lantern
Markings / pattern white tower
Height 12 feet (3.7 m)
Focal height 10 feet (3.0 m)
Light source solar power
Range 5 nautical miles (9.3 km; 5.8 mi)
Characteristic Fl W 2s.
Admiralty number J4608
NGA number 11920
ARLHS number BAH-023

The Cat Cays are two islands in the Bahamas, North Cat Cay and South Cat Cay, approximately 10 miles (16 km) south of Bimini. North Cat Cay is a privately owned island and is run as a private members club by the Cat Cay Yacht Club. South Cat Cay is currently under development.

North Cat Cay is a small private island in the Bimini chain of The Bahamas. It is named after the "cat line" of a sailing vessel which it resembles, and was once used by pirates Edward Teach, also known as Blackbeard, and Charles Vane. Queen Victoria granted the original deed for Cat Cay to Captain William Henry Stuart in 1873, as a reward for his services as keeper of the Lighthouse on neighbouring Gun Cay.

Later, Captain Arthur Samuel Haigh, an Englishman, became the owner of Cat Cay. Captain Haigh established the island custom of dressing formally for dinner. While his original home burned, the cookhouse remained intact and its huge oven fireplace is part of the rebuilt cottage named Haigh House in his honour. Haigh is buried in the historic Anglican graveyard on North Bimini.

Milo Strong and his wife bought the island in 1915 and they built and lived in the Manor House, extant today. They spent nine months out of the year on Cat Cay. The 1929 hurricane blew the roof off of their home and this was repaired but Strong died two years later and another storm damaged the Manor House, after which Mrs. Strong decided to sell.

Friends of the Strongs, Louis and Rae Wasey purchased the island for $400,000 in 1931. Wasey, an advertising executive from New York City, intended the island to be a winter home for himself and his wife and as a place to entertain clients and friends. He enlarged the Manor House and built a number of English style “cottages” for his guests.

During the Great Depression, Wasey turned the island development over to a friend and architect Mike Smith who loved the Bahamian and old English architecture and used both in making the island buildings. He employed Bahamians, sent a schooner to Cuba for handmade tiles from deserted churches and had men search the Florida swamps for angled pieces of wood needed for his Tudor-style buildings.


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