There is a building on Little Saint James that appears in almost every photograph ever taken of the island, and no two accounts agree on what it was for. The permit application filed with the Virgin Islands government described a pavilion designed for music, and said it would house a grand piano. The Romanian artist who did its interior work says Jeffrey Epstein called it his mosque. The internet settled on temple. It is now painted over and boarded up, and no document has surfaced that resolves the question.
That gap runs through everything about this place. The documented record on Little Saint James is narrow, specific and damning, and it was produced by a territorial law enforcement action that named what happened there in plain language. Past the edge of that record sits an enormous volume of assertion, and it has had seven years to grow.
This page stays inside the record. What the island is, how Epstein acquired it, what a government lawsuit established happened on it, what physically remains, and what nobody has established at all.
| Little Saint James | Great Saint James | |
|---|---|---|
| Acquired | April 1998 | 2016 |
| Reported price | $7.95 million | $22.5 million |
| Size | About 70 acres (28 ha) | About 165 acres (67 ha) |
| Developed | Extensively, over 21 years | Barely; clearing work became a legal issue |
| Owner since 2023 | Stephen Deckoff, who bought both for $60 million | |
| Status today | Private property. No resort built. Landing is trespassing. | |
| Purchase figures are as reported and have varied between accounts; the Great Saint James price has been given as low as $18 million elsewhere. Sources: territorial filings and contemporaneous reporting. | ||
Where Epstein island actually is
Little Saint James is a private island of roughly 70 acres, about 28 hectares, lying off the south-eastern end of Saint Thomas in the United States Virgin Islands. It is small enough to walk across and close enough to the main island that it is plainly visible from shore, which is why so much footage of it exists.
The name Epstein island is not a place name. It attached itself to Little Saint James after 2019 and has since been applied loosely to both islands Epstein owned. The second, Great Saint James, sits immediately to the north and is considerably larger at about 165 acres, roughly 67 hectares. It was never developed in the way the smaller island was.
Both are US territory. That detail matters more than it sounds, because it is the reason a US jurisdiction with subpoena power and its own criminal statutes was able to act.
How he acquired the islands
A company called LSJ bought Little Saint James in April 1998 for 7.95 million dollars. Filings later established Epstein as its sole member. He held it for the next twenty-one years and built out most of what is visible today across that period: a main villa, guest accommodation, pools, a helipad, and the striped building at the western end, along with a library, a Japanese bathhouse and a cinema.
In 2016 he bought Great Saint James for a reported 22.5 million dollars. He did comparatively little with it, and what he did do became a legal problem in its own right.
What the legal record establishes happened there
In January 2020 the Attorney General of the US Virgin Islands filed suit against Epstein’s estate under the territory’s criminal enterprise, sex trafficking, child exploitation and fraud statutes. Epstein had died the previous August in federal custody in Manhattan, so there was no criminal defendant left to try. The territory went after the estate instead.
On 1 December 2022 the territory settled with the estate for more than 105 million dollars. Attorney General Denise N. George stated that “dozens of young women and children were trafficked, raped, sexually assaulted, and held captive in the Virgin Islands at Epstein’s secluded private island, Little St. James”.
The settlement had four parts. The estate paid 105 million dollars in cash. It agreed to hand over half the proceeds from any sale of Little Saint James. It paid 450,000 dollars for environmental repair on Great Saint James, where the territory said Epstein had razed the remains of centuries-old structures built by enslaved workers to clear ground for his development. And it returned more than 80 million dollars in economic tax benefits the territory said had been obtained fraudulently.
| Component | Amount | What it covered |
|---|---|---|
| Cash payment | $105 million | Settlement of the territory’s law enforcement action |
| Share of sale proceeds | Half | Of any eventual sale of Little Saint James |
| Environmental repair | $450,000 | Damage on Great Saint James, where the territory said colonial-era structures built by enslaved workers were razed |
| Returned tax benefits | Over $80 million | Economic development benefits the territory said were obtained fraudulently |
| Announced 1 December 2022 by Attorney General Denise N. George. The action was filed in January 2020 under the territory’s criminal enterprise, sex trafficking, child exploitation and fraud statutes. It was settled, not tried. Source: US Virgin Islands Department of Justice. | ||
That is the load-bearing document for anything anyone says about this island. It is a government law enforcement action, resolved by a settlement, describing trafficking and captivity at a named location. Ghislaine Maxwell’s conviction in December 2021 and her twenty-year sentence the following June rest on a separate federal case, but they concern the same operation.
What is on the island now
Stephen Deckoff, founder of Black Diamond Capital Management, bought both islands in 2023 for 60 million dollars, well under the 125 million the pair had been listed at. He announced plans for a five-star, 25-room luxury resort, and said at the time it could open as early as 2025.
It did not. Three years after the purchase there is no resort, and the permitting record does not suggest one is close. The only construction permit sought for Little Saint James covers an 8,800-square-foot warehouse, described in the application as the reconstruction of an existing metal-framed warehouse into a concrete one with a cistern beneath the floor. That application was incomplete, missing an environmental assessment. Black Diamond has not responded to press inquiries about the project.
So the island sits. The striped building has been painted over and boarded up. Gargoyle statues remain scattered around. The structures Epstein built are still standing and are visibly deteriorating.
The 52 million views
The strangest thing about Little Saint James in 2026 is that it has become a content genre.
NBC News reviewed more than fifteen such videos in March 2026, at least nine of them posted in the first months of the year, with more than 52 million views between them. One creator’s island video passed 15 million views on its own. Several of the creators who made them found that the island video became one of the most-watched things on their channel.
The method is consistent. Jet ski or small boat out from Saint Thomas, drone up, and in some cases swim ashore and film the buildings from the ground while looking for tunnels. Landing is trespassing on private property. At least one YouTuber declined to step onto the island for exactly that reason. A watersports operator on Saint Thomas told NBC News what he tells customers who ask: no, do not go there, it is somebody’s island.
Neither the owner nor the Virgin Islands Police Department has said anything publicly about the trespassing, and neither responded when asked.
Separately, and from a very different source, more than sixteen minutes of footage shot on the island surfaced in July 2026 through the news agency Storyful. It was filmed by Ion Nicola, a Romanian artist who says he worked for Epstein between 2010 and 2019 doing interior work on several buildings, including the striped one. Nicola has not been accused of any wrongdoing. His footage, shot from a golf cart on a single-track road, shows manicured lawns, a pier with boats alongside, a large sundial and a gorilla statue. It is the closest thing to an ordinary walk-around that exists.
What the photographs from the investigation show
In November 2025, Democratic members of the House Oversight Committee released more than 150 photographs and videos of the island’s interiors, obtained through an investigation that has repeatedly met resistance from witnesses.
They are domestic and mundane in a way that is worse than sensational: bedrooms, bathrooms, storage rooms. Two images have drawn most of the attention. One shows a dental chair in a room with masks of men’s faces mounted on the wall behind it. Another shows a blackboard with a list of names on it, partly redacted before release.
Neither photograph explains itself, and the committee did not claim they did. A dental chair in a room on a private island is an object, not a finding. This is precisely the point at which careful reading of this material stops and speculation takes over, and the volume of speculation about these two images now vastly exceeds anything established about them.
What the record does not establish
A great many people are named in Epstein-related documents. Being named in a document is not an accusation, a charge or a finding, and the distinction collapses constantly in the way this material circulates. Flight logs record travel. Contact books record contacts. Depositions record what one person said under oath, which is evidence of what they said, not proof of what happened.
This page does not carry a visitor list, and that is a deliberate editorial decision rather than an oversight. A profile of a place is not the venue for adjudicating individual conduct, and a list assembled from documents that establish presence rather than conduct does real damage when it is read, as such lists always are, as a list of the guilty.
A year into the renewed federal inquiry, the questions still outnumbered the answers. What genuinely remains unknown here is narrower and more concrete. Nobody has produced a document that settles what the striped building was for, and the three available answers, a music pavilion, a mosque and a temple, come from a permit application, an artist who worked on it, and the internet respectively. Nobody outside Black Diamond knows whether the resort is delayed, redesigned or abandoned. And the total number of people who were brought to the island has never been established, only that the territory’s own filing described dozens.
The island’s economic future is likewise unresolved. A property whose entire public identity is a crime scene is a difficult thing to sell rooms in, and the buyer has been silent for three years about how he intends to try.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| April 1998 | A company later established as Epstein’s sole-member entity buys Little Saint James for $7.95 million |
| 2016 | Epstein buys neighbouring Great Saint James |
| August 2019 | Epstein dies in federal custody in Manhattan while awaiting trial |
| January 2020 | US Virgin Islands Attorney General files a law enforcement action against the estate |
| December 2021 | Ghislaine Maxwell convicted in a separate federal case; sentenced to 20 years the following June |
| December 2022 | Estate settles with the territory for over $105 million plus half of any island sale |
| 2023 | Stephen Deckoff buys both islands for $60 million and announces a 25-room resort |
| November 2025 | House Oversight Committee Democrats release 150+ interior photographs and videos |
| March 2026 | Trespassing videos of the island pass 52 million views across YouTube |
| July 2026 | 16 minutes of footage shot on the island by a former contractor surfaces via Storyful |
| Dates reflect public filings, court records and dated reporting. The resort announced in 2023 has not been built. | |
Epstein island: frequently asked questions
What is Epstein island?
Epstein island is the informal name for Little Saint James, a roughly 70-acre private island in the US Virgin Islands that Jeffrey Epstein bought in 1998 and owned until his death in 2019. The name is also applied loosely to Great Saint James, the larger island he bought in 2016.
Who owns Epstein island now?
Stephen Deckoff, founder of Black Diamond Capital Management, bought both islands in 2023 for 60 million dollars. Half the proceeds of the Little Saint James sale were owed to the US Virgin Islands government under the 2022 settlement with Epstein’s estate.
Can you visit Epstein island?
No. Both islands are private property and landing on them is trespassing. They are visible from the water off Saint Thomas, which is how the drone and boat footage circulating online is made.
What happened on Epstein island?
The US Virgin Islands Attorney General’s 2020 law enforcement action alleged that girls and young women were trafficked to Little Saint James, held there and sexually abused, and that passports were confiscated to prevent them leaving. The estate settled that action in December 2022 for more than 105 million dollars without the case going to trial.
What is the temple on Epstein island?
The blue-and-white striped building at the western end. Its purpose is disputed. Permit records describe a pavilion designed for music with a grand piano. An artist who worked on its interior says Epstein called it his mosque. It has since been painted over and boarded up.
Is anything being built on Epstein island?
Not the announced resort. The only permit sought is for an 8,800-square-foot warehouse on Little Saint James, and that application was incomplete for want of an environmental assessment. The 25-room resort the owner described in 2023, originally floated for a 2025 opening, has not materialised.
How big is Epstein island?
Little Saint James is about 70 acres, or 28 hectares. Great Saint James, the neighbouring island Epstein bought in 2016, is roughly 165 acres, or 67 hectares.
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