Tortola Estate on Brewers Bay
Was Once a Rum Distillery

What: Five dwellings on 8.25 acres with a total of eight bedrooms, eight full bathrooms

Where: Tortola, British Virgin Islands

Amenities: Heated pool with pavilion, tennis court, artist's studio, three-bedroom caretaker's cottage and two-bedroom gate house, exercise room, guest suite

Asking Price: $4.85 million

Opening Bid*: $4.5 million

Listing Agents: Smiths Gore Overseas, an affiliate of Christie's Great Estates, 284-494-2446

Due Diligence: This estate sits about 800 feet above sea level on the ruins of a rum distillery that closed in the 1950s. It's on the north side of Tortola, about three miles from Road Town, the biggest community. Joan and Parker Quillen, who had careers in the antiques trade, bought the site in 1981 and spent several years converting the undeveloped property, adding several dwellings and turning the distillery's walls into garden walls that surround an outdoor dining area. Four sugar coppers (more-than-200-year-old pots used in sugar processing) accent an outside entertaining area, and the rum-barrel warehouse was turned into a pub and billiard room. The distillery's furnaces and grinding presses are still on the property. The great room inside the main house has 20-foot ceilings and separate living, dining, and bar areas. The room opens to a large wraparound veranda including a covered formal dining area overlooking the pool and nearby Brewers Bay. The master-bedroom suite is in a separate cottage with private decks. Meadows and tropical forest surround the property. The Quillens, now retired, split their time between homes in Houston, Southern France and Mexico.

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