CHAPTER 1 : A HUMBLE BEGINNING
THE HISTORY OF LYFORD CAY INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL
By Eric Wiberg ( 1975-79 )
William Sayle led the Eleutheran Adventurers to Eleuthera , and then in September 1785 Captain William Lyford Jr was granted 448 acres in what is now Lyford Cay for his service to the Loyalist cause as a ship ’ s pilot in Savannah and St Augustine .
Lyford Cay International School ( LCIS ) can trace its origins to one man ’ s fall from his horse . Early in 1954 , the Canadian businessman , horse breeder and visionary Edward Plunket “ EP ” Taylor was riding his grey mare on the family estate named Windfields when the horse bucked , throwing Taylor onto the road and sending him to Toronto General Hospital for a month and a half . According to his biographer , Richard Rohmer , “ It was during this recuperative period , with little to do , that he took a long , hard look at his own future and at the potential of Lyford Cay …‘ I went there for reasons of my happiness and my health , and to make a contribution .’”
Shortly after getting out of hospital , Taylor and his wife Winnie returned to The Bahamas to stay with their friends the Allan Millers at Lyford Cay . He made an offer to Bahamian realtor Sir Harold Christie to buy all of the available land at Lyford Cay , which was still mostly swamp and mangrove . Musing on the reasons for the move , Taylor later said , “ I ’ ve always found it difficult to refrain from embarking on a business venture which appears to be constructive , which would fill a need ... Lyford Cay afforded the opportunity to lay out a perfectly planned community that would stand out for generations as a pleasant place in which to live .”
The total land that EP Taylor purchased was about 2,800 acres . His accountant Don Prowse described Taylor viewing the property from a hill : “ All I could see down there was mango [ mangrove ] swamp . He ’ d say , ‘ We ’ ll put the golf course over there , the beach club will go there , and we ’ ll have the first residential development over there .’ He could see it . The place was transformed by his vision because he could see what most of us can ’ t see . That ’ s the nature of the man .”
Of course Taylor was not the first pioneer to visit The Bahamas – the Lucayans and Taino tribes first arrived around 700 AD , and Columbus landed in 1492 . In 1648 ,
The origins of Lyford Cay School lay with EP Taylor ’ s formation of the Lyford Cay Development Company in 1954 , with the intention to carve one of the first and most exclusive international residential and seasonal communities . The area was to be gated in and include a golf course , marina , main club house with hotel-style rooms , club pool and beach , fire station , post office , roads , and so on . Taylor did not want to sell lots until the development was substantially complete ; the golf course opened in 1958 and the marina opened in 1961 . The main club opened at the end of 1959 , and , by then , the club could boast 500 members . Almost all of the funding came from Taylor himself , and , until 1973 , he owned roughly three quarters of the shares .
Lyford Cay School , now known as Lyford Cay International School , had humble beginnings in 1962 as a place where children of the
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