The Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean Sea are a group of islets and cays that have undergone an upscale transformation thanks to private ownership and the real estate market. You won’t find any remote villagers inhabiting these islands; instead, developers have gone all out in developing world-class property in hopes of turning a big profit. Emerald Cay is among the group’s gems.

Approximately 2.3 acres in size, Emerald Cay isn’t exactly a sprawling piece of land. However, it is a private island, surrounded by the turquoise waters of the Caribbean on all sides and granting access to the mainland via a remote controlled drawbridge.

Emerald Cay isn’t a solid piece of land, either. It’s made up of smaller pieces of land, powdery white-sand beaches and sporadic patches of woodland. It’s perhaps one of the most unique properties currently on sale in the Caribbean.

The asking price when Emerald Cay first went on the market was around $75 million. Due to the economic times we live in and the fact that no one was making offers on the private estate, the owners decided to knock the price down some. The lavish cay went from $75 million all the way down to $45 million - $30 million off the original asking price.

Ownership insists that they’re not desperate to sell, only that six years of development went into designing and building the property, so selling it is an important issue to all those who worked on the project. They need a return on the investment, even if it’s not as large as they initially hoped for.

Apart from a few patches of greenery and a few activity zones, the entire acreage is devoted to the island’s robust mansion. Looking more like a castle, standing four stories off the island and stretching from east to west, the house on Emerald Cay is a staggering 30,000 square feet of living space.

Behind the luxurious house sits two huge swimming pools, one with its own waterfall, and a large clubhouse and gazebo, a barbeque pavilion, and a tennis and volleyball court. There’s also main beachfront property directly in front of the house, and other smaller beaches as you work your way around the property.

Developers were hoping the inside of the property would be as strong of a selling point as the outside. The great room and library are each three-stories with 45-foot-high cypress ceilings. There’s a gigantic gourmet kitchen, dining room, a master bedroom with its own pavilion, a 6,000-bottle wine cellar, a master bath with a huge walk-in shower and soaking tub, and much more.

One of the main issues of island living is the commute. Emerald Cay has two boat slips, a large boat house and a series of roads on the mainland to get wherever you need to go. Rounding out the features on the property are a large guest house and a caretaker’s home.