Saint Martin

Saint Martin appears in Andy Warhol’s diary as a sharply observed short escape: a blue-and-white stay at La Samanna, shared with Jon Gould, Chris Makos, and Peter Wise, whose ease and beauty are interrupted by a quarrel among the companions. The entries move from arrival and the rituals of a resort holiday to photographs, swimming, and a shipwreck, then end with the group paying to leave the island. Their brisk sequence records both the pleasure of being there and the unsettled social atmosphere within the rented house.

Arrival and the resort setting

On April 14, 1983, Warhol recorded an easy ride to Saint Martin and a $10 cab fare before checking in at La Samanna. He, Jon Gould, Chris Makos, and Peter Wise shared Villa M. The group ordered piña coladas, and Warhol applied sunblock and kept it on throughout the stay. These small details give the trip its practical texture: transport, accommodation, drinks, and protection from the sun sit alongside his sweeping impression of the place as the most beautiful he had ever seen, defined by blue and white.

The first evening set the resort’s tone. Dinner at the hotel was grand, with a view from the balcony, and cost $214.45. Warhol noted the shift in how the place felt as more guests arrived: on the first day, a visitor could feel like a tourist, but the arrival of newcomers made the earlier arrivals feel like veterans. Peter Martins, the dancer, was also there and greeted him. The entry places celebrity recognition and the ordinary social adjustment of settling into a holiday in the same quick, observational register.

Photographs, sea, and small surprises

The next day, April 15, Warhol called the weather the most beautiful day in the world and photographed throughout it. On April 16, he described another day of blue sky and blue sea. Chris Makos, Peter Wise, and Jon Gould went snorkeling; Warhol instead walked to a wrecked ship and took pictures. The contrast is modest but distinct: the others entered the water together, while his own excursion turned the shoreline and its wreck into photographic subjects.

The resort’s appearance also invited closer inspection. Outside, bushes seemed to carry beautiful red flowers; on looking closely, the group discovered that the real flowers had been taped onto them. The detail punctures the immaculate surface without turning the diary into a general complaint about the hotel. It is one of the entries’ characteristic reversals: a scene first registered as natural beauty proves to have been arranged, though the flowers themselves are real.

Villa M and the rupture in the group

The trip’s most consequential moment came at Villa M, where Chris Makos and Jon Gould fought. Jon shouted at Chris that he could have his job, meaning that he could snap his fingers and turn Warhol against him. The threat made everyone feel odd. In a diary otherwise given to weather, meals, and pictures, the exchange abruptly exposes a struggle over influence and employment inside the traveling party. The villa is therefore more than a convenient place to stay: it is where the holiday’s social calm breaks, and where the implications of Jon’s closeness to Warhol become uncomfortable for the others.

Departure and the island’s division

On April 17, the diary records the group’s departure and a required tax of $5 per person, or $20 for all four. Warhol added that Saint Martin was divided between French and Dutch halves and judged the French half cleaner. That brief comparison makes the island’s political division part of his practical, passing appraisal of place—not an extended account of its history, but a distinction he chose to preserve as the group left.

Taken together, the entries make Saint Martin a compact episode rather than a sustained destination narrative. The stay is measured through a cab fare, an expensive dinner, sunblock, photographs, snorkeling, a taped-on display of real flowers, a quarrel, and the tax at departure. Beauty remains the trip’s dominant impression, but it is never the only one: the diary records how quickly leisure becomes social observation, and how a seemingly effortless escape can contain its own tensions.