Island Life

It's the ultimate escape fantasy: Trade in the rat race for life on a tropical island and all the languid luxury that it evokes. For India Hicks and David Flint Wood, the dream became reality when, after high-profile careers—she as a fashion model, he as an advertising executive—the couple left the city behind for the Bahamas. Five years and three children later, the husband-and-wife team has impeccably restored three houses and one hotel. Fusing traditional European design with Asian, African, and Caribbean influences, the resulting interiors reflect their love of intense color and their keen sense of style—inherited on India's side from her father, the renown interior designer David Hicks, and further enhanced by the family's travels. In Island Life, the secrets of these sumptuous, unique homes—used as photography locations for Ralph Lauren, J. Crew, and Vogue magazine, among others—are revealed in intimate detail. With panoramic color photographs, David Loftus captures not only the eclectic combinations of antiques, flea market finds, and modern furnishings, but also the overall ambiance of the tropics. For those who share David and India's dream, this is where to start planning.