The ownership of a private island in the Bahamas that was previously a retreat of the late, prominent South Florida designer James Wallace Tutt III — and which has been at the center of a five-year legal dispute — is now in the hands of the Bahamian court.
The Third District Court of Appeal in Miami on Wednesday affirmed three lower court judges’ decisions that the matter has to be decided in the Bahamas and not in Miami.
Tutt, an interior designer and developer whose elegant style attracted celebrity clients including Cher, Gianni Versace, Robert De Niro and Diane von Furstenberg, died in 2010 at age 53 on Harbour Island in the Bahamas. His death was apparently heart related, according to a statement from his family at the time.
Tutt moved to South Florida in the 1980s after working as a lawyer and builder in Washington, D.C.
Here, he gained notoriety for transforming the mansion of the late Italian designer Versace into Casa Casuarina, a South Beach icon.
Tutt and his life partner, Don Purdy, moved to Harbour Island in 2002, where they transformed a 1940s home into a luxury 10-room hotel, Rock House.
Tutt also bought Caribe Cay, a three-acre private island with a home, off Harbour Island, as a retreat.
