Following the edge of the sea, past a sprawling, well-preserved stone hillside fortress that guarded the western entrance to the harbor, beyond a budding wealthy residential development, rounding a curve Marjorie Bristol called Brown’s Point, Samuel and his surrey ambled past a lush green golf course which provided a vast lawn for the estate next door.

The house itself wasn’t visible from the road. Rather, it was announced by a black wrought-iron fence with white stone pillars and a black wrought-iron gate whose metal work, in rococo cursive, spelled out Westbourne.

The double gate was shut, but not locked, and Samuel stepped off the surrey, swung open half the gate and returned to shake the reins and get us moving again. He did not get back out to shut the gate behind him before we rolled up and around the crescent-shaped drive across an immaculately landscaped lawn dressed with vivid colorful clusters of gardens, like flowers in a pretty girl’s hair. The ever-present palms leaned lazily, as if gesturing toward the large, low house itself.

New Providence was a long narrow island-twenty-one miles by seven-and the house on the Oakes estate mimicked that shape, as well as paralleled it, wide to the west and east, narrow to the south and north. The elongated front of the haciendalike house-or was it the back? — dwarfed its two stories, making the structure look lower-slung than it was; Sir Harry’s fabled home reminded me, frankly, of a motor hotel.

Westbourne was a surprisingly ungainly, shrubbery-surrounded, white-shuttered gray stucco affair with a reddish tile roof and lots of latticework on which bougainvillea climbed; a balcony ran the length of the building, providing a roof for the first-story walkway below, which ceased to the right of the entry porch where the doors of several garages stood half-open, revealing pricey vehicles within. At either end of the structure, open wooden stairways with latticework balustrades gave access to the balcony and many of the second-floor rooms.