Famed pink sands, with scarcely a footprint for miles. Turquoise waters lapping at the shore, the ocean a reservoir of enticement. And beside the sea, a small shack to call home. Welcome to Canadian-born entrepreneur Pip Coupland-Simmons's reality-a private home- cum-hotel well-loved by visitors for its amalgamation of island-style colours and European-inspired design sense. “You don't ever want to compete with nature in this part of the world,” she says. “You want to complement it, not match it.”
The beachfront location of Coupland-Simmons's unconventional home belies her inventiveness in the face of necessity. Consisting of what were originally bath huts for the big houses in town, the cabins that make up her residence and hotel were the places families used to eat lunch when spending a day at the beach. Converting four shacks into rooms for her personal use-a bath, a kitchen and two bedrooms-struck a familiar cord with Coupland-Simmons's upbringing.
“That's the Canadian coming out in me,” she explains. “My grandparents had a camp in Quebec with cabins in the woods, and it formed a love for homes deep in nature.”
Thirty years ago, while visiting her mother's newly adopted home of Bahamas, Coupland-Simmons came under the spell of the intimate Harbour Island, and never left. “I really fell in love with it,” admits the Almonte, Ontario, native, “when I realized that I could make a life here and not be in a car all the time- unlike in Canada, where one thing seems so far away from the next.”
The owner of a decor shop, Miss Mae's, as well as the Oceanview Club hotel, Coupland-Simmons's roundabout route to becoming a proprietor included settling down in Europe and studying at the Cordon Bleu. But it was in this enclave, home to celebrities in need of a private retreat, that everything seemed to fall into place. “I got involved in the burgeoning fashion scene here,” she says. “I helped out with props on photo shoots and learned a lot about using colour.”
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