From Wikipedia: "The hotel, originally opened in 1924, is located in a grand colonial building and has been described as "the Grand Dame of all Nassau hotels", "the most elegant and most expensive hotel in town", and "the most distinctive and pleasant of the island's large hotels".
The site was occupied in the 19th century by the Old Fort of Nassau to protect the western entrance to the Nassau Harbour until it was demolished in 1873.
In 1900, the land was purchased by Henry M. Flagler, responsible for the Breakers Hotel in South Florida. He built an enormous wooden hotel on the site, the Colonial Hotel, which opened in 1901. On March 31, 1922 the hotel was gutted by fire. The Bahamian government gave a loan to the Munson Line, which purchased the land and built a brand new seven-story hotel, The New Colonial, on the site within six months. The hotel celebrated its grand opening on January 7, 1924.
The hotel was bought by Florida-based Gill Hotels in 1960 and became part of Sheraton Hotels in November 1962 as the Sheraton British Colonial, the chain's fourth ever franchise. Sheraton operated the hotel until 1989, when it became part of Best Western Hotels as the British Colonial Beach Resort. The old hotel building was gradually closed up over the course of the 1990s, with rooms eventually operating in only a small portion of the complex. Finally, in 1997 it was purchased by RHK, who renovated it at a cost of over $90 million. They completely gutted and modernized the interiors, but retained its façade of towers, galleries, and molded reliefs. Since the hotel reopened in 1999 it has been managed by Hilton Hotels as the British Colonial Hilton Nassau. It was renovated in June 2009 at a cost of US$15 million.
The hotel was sold on October 24, 2014 to the China State Construction Engineering Corporation. From 2016-2019, the group constructed a $250 million complex, originally known as The Pointe, adjacent to the British Colonial, located on the hotel's former parking lot. The hotel and condominium towers of The Pointe have since been branded as Margaritaville Beach Resort Nassau.
On one side of the hotel is a tropical garden and the pool overlooking the harbor. The main restaurants are Aqua, serving international cuisine and Portofino serving Italian-Caribbean fusion cuisine, and the Bullion Bar serves drinks and snacks. The lobby is luxurious, with marble titles and antiques and features the Blackbeard’s Cove Lobby bar and nightly Bahamian/Caribbean music. All of the rooms are decorated in colonial décor. A relief depicting Christopher Columbus is situated high on the grand central tower of the hotel, and at the front of the hotel is a statue of Woodes Rogers, the ex-privateer who proved effective against piracy in the area. A mural depicting the history of the Bahamas was added in 1999 to the entrance hall.
The hotel has six floors spread over an 8-acre plot and has 288 guest rooms, 20 suites and 47 executive-level rooms. It has a 300-foot-long private white sand beach which features complimentary kayaking and snorkeling. The hotel has been fully modernised with new electronics and furnishings. The executive lounge is located on the top floor provided with 18,400 feet (5,600 m) of space." (
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