THE CARIBBEAN : FAMED AND UNTAMED : TO ST. BARTS WITH THE IN CROWD

By the time we reached the island of St. Martin, the “chosen” had segregated themselves at the airport.

The flight from New York had been, up until then, a smorgasbord of vacationing types and temperaments: an investment banker and his girlfriend shouldering tennis rackets into the front cabin; a young Frenchman in jeans, vest and designer sunglasses; several fellows with beer bellies jiggling to jokes told in coarse New York accents; unruly children sprinting down the aisle; a baby with the whistling cry of a neglected teakettle.

But when the passengers divided, a large group headed inland, carrying away the jokes and the teakettle. The line forming quietly for the connecting puddle-jumper looked like tee-off time at a country club. Destination: St.-Barthelemy. Members only.

The discovery phase of a chic spot is always the same: People in the know--the rich, the artists, the cognoscenti--find a place that, in the early stages, is simple, quiet and hard to reach. Portofino (inaccessible by rail); Mykonos (obtainable only by ferry or small plane); St. Barts (poor and isolated). In St. Barts’ case, all that changed with the construction of a small airport in the 1960s, albeit one large enough for commuter aircraft only.

At that juncture, the French island of St. Barts could have gone the way of the “developed” Caribbean resort communities that built jet runways, dredged deep ports and erected towers at the water’s edge. From the outset, however, St. Barts said no to high-rises, to Love Boats the size of battleships (smaller, chic-er cruise ships do call here), to walled “all-inclusive” compounds where selected black persons serve white bodies browning by azure pools.

The result: provincial France with coconuts. Almost nothing else edible can grow along the island’s gray, sun-scorched hills. No crops meant almost no slaves, and the population remains almost all white, mostly of French or Swedish stock. While the tumble-down fishing village of Corossol is a reminder that many of the islanders are far from wealthy, the poverty that consumes much of the Caribbean has largely eluded St. Barts.

At the St. Barts airport, my wife, Julie, and I did what every visitor must: We rented a car, in our case a ragtop four-wheel-drive, an essential vehicle to navigate the island’s narrow, rough roads that twist and scrape along roller-coaster hillsides. St. Barts is a tiny place--only 8 1/2 square miles in area and 4,000 people--and shaped roughly like the letter V. The most time it takes to drive anywhere is 15 minutes . . . in the rain. And because of the steep hills, driving is the only sensible way to get around.

We climbed east, passing scooters supporting blond women in sarongs or Yves St. Laurent, and neglecting the hitchhikers, an omission that, we later discovered, is almost ill-mannered among islanders, who routinely give each other lifts. We arrived late at the El Sereno.

Over a bottle of French rose at Le Lagon Bleu, the hotel’s convivial seaside brasserie , the then-manager explained that even though the island continues to draw famous names (major movie, rock and media stars mixed in among international millionaires), you never hear the people of St. Barts saying, “Oh, they’re here.” Discretion, he observed, is always maintained.

By St. Barts standards, the rather plain El Sereno is one of the island’s more modest lodgings, and something of a local hangout. It’s a favorite among staffers at competing hotels, who drift by on days off to mingle with celebrities and enjoy La Toque Lyonaise, the renowned hotel restaurant (regrettably, closed during our stay). While we were there last July, during the off season when prices are much lower on this notoriously expensive isle, our fellow guests tended to be young and European.

We soon went native, falling into the routine of a French tropical island: morning on the beach, excellent lunch, afternoon on the beach, magnificent dinner. In Capri a couple of years earlier, Julie had pushed aside North American reticence and gone topless in public for the first time. On our first day at the beach in St. Barts, she discretely removed her bathing suit top. On our second day, she left it in the car. Then we discovered Grande Saline, the uncrowded white-sand beach where clothing is optional. By the third day, she didn’t bother with a swimsuit at all.

On the advice of friends, who had warned us about rough winds on Saline beach, I had bought a garish, multicolored beach umbrella. When we planted it in the sand, a succession of gusts compressed it into mushroom shape, twisting the ribs into junk metal. We never unpacked the replacement.

When we wanted a break from the beach, we drove to St. Barts’ main town, Gustavia, a picturesque Caribbean port dotted with red-roofed houses.

We wandered into Stephane & Bernard, island clothiers to the stars, where Bernard Blancaneaux, who runs the menswear side, eyed with amusement the cream-colored long pants and coordinated Italian shirt I’d put on for the afternoon. From behind a desk, Bernard, dressed in shorts, announced: “You’re too chic for St. Barth (the French spelling).” I’d find my way soon enough, he concluded.

Midway through our stay, in order to sample a different kind of hotel experience than the intimate and relatively inexpensive El Sereno, we moved to the 40-room Sofitel Christopher. So anxious is the island to preserve its character that the building of the Christopher (it opened in 1993) caused consternation, not because it would be the biggest hotel on St. Barts (that would be the Guanahani, with 73 rooms), but because it is part of a big chain.

They needn’t have worried. We took a tastefully spare, whitewashed room overlooking an ocean-facing terrace lined with a row of beach umbrellas that, when folded, looked like a procession of bishops heading toward the sea.

By now, Julie despaired at having to leave. We visited Sibarth, the leading agency for the rental of villas. In earnest, Julie discussed house prices and rental income with the agency’s owners, Roger and Brook Lacour, earlier described to us as the most powerful people on the island, apparently because they control so much property. But if Julie even for a moment felt like she had arrived, as she and Brook looked over homes on the market, the prices, containing several unexpected zeros, convinced her that she had not.

Julie had fallen in love with St. Barts on landing, and by now the island had begun to grow on me as well. There is something discernibly “correct” about St. Barts. We learned that the correct way to swim is nude, in clear water. The correct way to dine is leisurely, on what we considered fairly priced (given the quality and the fact that everything has to be imported) French food and wine. The correct way to shop is to browse and buy little, unharried and almost unobserved. The correct island resort (meaning all of them) has no T-shirt shops, no disposable treasures crafted by locals, no casinos and no security guards (crime is virtually unknown here).

The correct place to rendezvous with friends is an open-walled spot called Bar de l’Oubli, just across the street in Gustavia from the other hip place in town, Le Select. A delicious lunch for two with mineral water at Bar de l’Oubli was only $20; evenings are spent kicking back drinks.

The word we kept hearing on St. Barts was ambience; on its preservation, the islanders we spoke to presented a united front. Maybe it was our off-season luck, but we found everyone was courteous and helpful.

On the morning of our departure a week later, we stopped at Le Cave, a huge climate-controlled wine warehouse on the windward side of the isle near El Sereno, our first hotel. By now I was fragrant with seawater salt, sand stuck to my shorts and the shirt that Bernard had branded too chic hung open and moist. No one cared, and a young man politely took me through this oenophile’s paradise, recommending, then packing for carry-on, several duty-free bottles of Bordeaux.

At the airport, we realized that we had left our spare beach umbrella at the Sofitel Christopher. The assistant manager drove it out to us herself.

Back on St. Martin, three uniformed women at the security checkpoint couldn’t muster a polite word among them. We boarded our 757 behind an undergraduate wearing a ludicrous palm-frond hat and a COED NAKED BASKETBALL T-shirt. Right or wrong, we felt shamelessly pleased with ourselves as we began our re-entrance to the incorrect world.

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GUIDEBOOK: St. Barts Connections

Getting there: American, Delta and Continental serve the Caribbean, but getting to St. Barts from Southern California is complicated. Flying from LAX requires stops in either Atlanta, Miami or New York, with further connections in the Caribbean (usually San Juan, St. Thomas or St. Martin). High season round-trip fares range from $639 to $836, with additional fares on smaller connecting airlines to St. Barts.

When to go: Winter is high season; summers are hotter but much better priced (hotel rooms cost 35%-40% less).

Where to stay: We stayed at the El Sereno Beach Hotel (Grand Cul-de-Sac; telephone 011-590-27-64-80, fax 011-590-27-75-47; high season rates for double rooms are $265-$360, but the prices during our July stay were nearly half that), not fancy but small and comfortable with 20 rooms, nine nearby villas, two restaurants and an elegant pool area; and at the Sofitel Christopher (Pointe Milou; for reservations tel. 800-221-4542, or from U.S. call 011-590-27-63-63, fax 011-590-27-92-92; ocean view rooms about $350), with 40 rooms and five villas.

In recent years, several small, deluxe hotels have opened to cater to those who might have refused the island’s Euro-spare accommodations. Prices usually come down for stays of a week or more, and some hotels offer packages. Another option, although not cheap, is renting a villa for a week, more cost-effective if you’re traveling with friends or children. In North America, contact the Sibarth agency (in the U.S. tel. 800-932-3222 or fax 401-847-6290; or dial direct 011-590-27-62-38, fax 011-590-27-60-52) for rentals; one-bedroom villas with pools run $2,300-$3,000 per week.

Where to eat: Being French, cuisine is a pride of the island, but, also being French, the high-quality food has prices to match. On the high end, of the restaurants we sampled we can recommend:

La Gaiac (local tel. 27-88-88), where a sybaritic dinner for two with a bottle of wine costs about $150; Marigot Bay Club; local tel. 27-75-45) which is noted for seafood (about $100 for two); the dining room at Hotel Carl Gustaf (local tel. 27-82-83), one of the island’s premier hotels, which serves a special lunch du jour for about $60 for two; Saigon (no tel.), offering Vietnamese, Thai and Chinese dishes for under $50 for two, including wine; L’Escale (local tel. 27-81-06), an Italian place on the waterfront.

“Budget” choices include Le Paradiso, where $40 buys a three-course lunch for two (local tel. 27-80-78); La Creperie, where a good lunch cost us about $20 (local tel. 27-84-07). For more information: Contact ther French Government Tourist Office, 9454 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 715, Beverly Hills 90212, 900-990-0040 (50 cents per minute).