St Kitts: This other Eden

A Caribbean island where the beaches are empty and the holiday homes are affordable - in St Kitts, Nicola Venning finds a brief window of opportunity

There are few places in the Caribbean where you can buy a beachfront home for £250,000. Amid the Barbadian bustle, anything with a glimpse of that glittering sea costs at least half a million (pounds, not dollars). In Antigua, prices are only marginally lower.

St Kitts, however, is the exception. On this lush tropical island in the east Caribbean where calypso resounds from beach bars you can still pick up a two-bedroom beachfront condominium from around £140,000. Why? Because until now, St Kitts was heavily reliant on the sugar-cane business and undeveloped (there is still only one direct flight per week from the UK), with property prices that reflect this. The island - a former British colony and only about 68 square miles with a population of around 38,000 - is so untouched that people still drive into the colonial-style capital, Basseterre to collect post from mail boxes. Curious white egrets stare at you from the roadside while vervet monkeys scold you from guava trees. But all this is about to change.

The sugar industry has died and St Kitts has opened its doors to tourism. "There is a great need for vacation homes in St Kitts," says Owen Pritchard, the regional director of Newfound Property Group. "The government really wants additional beds for tourist use."

British airlines are "in talks" with the minister of tourism about direct flights and as the island gears up for tourism, international developers are moving in. "The British see St Kitts as a new emerging market," says the local estate agent Brian Kassab. Meanwhile, land prices have doubled in five years from USA $5 (£2.60) per square foot to $10-15 (£5.25-£7.88) per square foot and Kassab is sure they will double again.

The untouched south-east peninsula, an area of roughly 4,500 acres, has been designated an upmarket, high-end, low-density tourist zone. However, developers are already scrambling over the peninsula: the hotel group Auberge are about to build two hotels with more hotels and a further 1,500 villas and duplexes in the pipeline. Local developers are behind Sundance Ridge, also on the peninsula, a collection of 15 large gated villas that start from US $2.1m (£1.1m).

Meanwhile, Newfound Property Group are first off the starting blocks, with Ocean's Edge, on North Frigate Bay, the gateway to the peninsula, to be finished by late 2008. Set in 40 acres on the Atlantic coast, Ocean's Edge will comprise 172 apartments with differing views of the ocean and Frigate Bay. A further 19 hillside plots are available for individual villas.

The homes, which start from $299,000 (£160,000) for a one-bed to $519,000 (£275,000) for a two-bed cottage, will be made to the standards of those in Dade County, Florida, as the island suffered two big hurricanes in 1994 and 1999. The architectural style is a synergy between New England clapboard and Caribbean vernacular - reassuring, particularly given the speed of development on the island which many feel could be more tightly regulated. "They (the government) do not have enough design control in place," says Mitch Stuart, of the Caribbean design specialist OBM International and the architect behind Ocean's Edge.

But the government is confident that by encouraging only upmarket development and design, the environment itself will be protected. "We are improving the guidelines to ensure the area (the south-east peninsula) remains as pristine as possible, says Ellis Hazel, the government's director of Physical Planning and Environment.

Trish Lingfield and her husband David, both in their fifties, from Meopham in Kent, are buying a hillside plot of land for around $300,000 and plan to build a four-bedroom detached villa within Ocean's Edge. "There is going to be development on St Kitts but not in a way that will spoil it. It's a lovely island," she says.

In a few years St Kitts could well be one of the most chic - and expensive - islands in the Caribbean, though much of its beach-shack simplicity and charm will be lost. By the time that happens, there may not be another under-developed, bargain-packed Caribbean island to turn to next.

Newfound Property International 020-8605 9530; www.newfoundproperty.com; uk@newfoundproperty.com

The lowdown

* No income tax No capital gains tax after 12 months ownership.

* Average temperature 79 degrees F (25 degrees C)

* Direct flights Gatwick to St Kitts Excel Airways (charter) every Saturday from £400.00 return.

BA Flights from Gatwick daily except Friday via Antigua. Caribbean Star fly from Antigua to St Kitts.

BWIA and Virgin from Heathrow via Antigua

More direct flights being "discussed".

* www.sundanceridgestkitts.com

* www.stkittspeninsula.com

* Brian Kassab, estate agent: www.BKassab.com 00-1-(869) 466-6341