For nearly a century, British Colonial has been interwoven into the fabric of Nassau. As a beloved local landmark, it is a place where Bahamian past and present seem to merge seamlessly into one, as if they were never separate to begin with.
In 1900, Henry M. Flagler financed and built the Colonial Hotel, which opened in 1901. It burned down in 1922, leading to the construction of The New Colonial, opening in 1924. In 1932, Sir Harry Oakes bought it, supposedly on a whim after being asked to leave the hotel for not dressing properly, and renamed it the British Colonial Hotel. He was murdered in 1943 in an unsolved mystery dubbed the "murder of the century."
