Even among Jamaicans, the sleepy town of Port Antonio, tucked away on the island’s untouristed northeast coast, carries an air of rough-and-tumble remoteness. But for Jon Baker, the proprietor ofthe Geejam Hotel, in nearby San San, that is precisely the point.
In 1986, Baker was living in London and had just met Ziggi Golding, a Jamaican-German photographer’s agent (Juergen Teller was an early client) who also ran a modeling agency. “For Christmas that year we flew to Jamaica and drove thousands of miles all over the country for three and a half weeks visiting her relatives,” Baker, 51, says. “By the last week, I was exhausted and asked, ‘Is there anywhere on the island where you have no relatives?’ And she said, ‘Oh, yes—Port Antonio.’ So I said, ‘We’re going there.’ ”