Gibney Beach or Oppenheimer Beach is a beach located on Hawksnest Bay on northern Saint John in the United States Virgin Islands. The beach's names originate from Nancy Flagg Gibney and J. Robert Oppenheimer and their families, the owners of the beach in the mid-20th century. The beach has been mostly accessible to the public since its acquisition, and a community center has been created on the property. The community center stands where Oppenheimer’s house used to be.
History
The Taino inhabited St. John's north shore in the period around 1100 CE. They established one of several villages on what is now known as Hawksnest Point located between Hawksnest and Caneel Bay.
Early European settlers named this part of Hawksnest Bay "Fortuna Bay", a name that appears on the manuscript map of Peter Lotharios Oxholm drawn in 1780. This eastern shore of the Bay was part of the large Susannaberg sugar plantation at the top of the watershed. It was split off with Estate Denis Bay and in 1906, and later separated from Denis Bay in 1920. A small bay rum oil still was operational on the property in the late 19th century, and a tiny factory distilled rum from sugarcane for manufacture of the bay rum cologne. John Lindquist, owner of much of St. John's north shore in the early 20th century, planted coconuts, bananas, and other fruit trees on this property and neighboring Denis Bay, as well as at his home at Cinnamon Bay.
Land area and owners
In 1950, the property was purchased by former New York City residents Robert Gibney and his wife, Nancy Flagg Gibney. Robert was a writer, artist, and friend of Thomas Merton; Nancy was a feature editor for Vogue. Before the purchase, Gibney Beach had only been known as Hawksnest Beach. The original parcel of land purchased by the Gibneys has been divided and sold in a number of ways through the years.Some of the beach area is now part of the Virgin Islands National Park. A small piece of land, on the far northeastern section of the beach, was sold in 1957 to J. Robert Oppenheimer, an atomic scientist and member of the Manhattan Project. The house was later refurbished by the government and opened as a community center.
The Gibneys
Robert and Nancy Gibney came to St. John on their honeymoon in 1946. Robert was 31 at the time and Nancy was 25. They planned to spend a few months in the islands; in order to stay this extended time, Nancy had to quit her job. Robert planned to write a novel while in the islands. The Gibneys rented a small cottage on Cruz Bay Beach. Later when friends Julius and Cleome Wadsworth, who lived on Denis Bay, moved back to the United States for the summer, the Gibneys stayed in their home rent free. When the Wadsworths returned the following winter, the Gibneys were not yet ready to leave, so they moved into a shed on Henley Cay, an island on Caneel Bay. At the time this was the only available housing to be found, and the Gibneys ended up living there for the next three years. In 1950 Robert's father died and left Robert and Nancy enough money to look into buying land on St. John. They purchased of land on Hawksnest Bay and made it their own. Their house was built in the center of the beach from rocks found onsite. Gibney beach became home to Robert, Nancy, and their three children, Ed, Eleanor and John. Robert home schooled all three children. He worked for Caneel Bay during the expansion of the resort in the 1950s. In the 1960s he became a librarian in Cruz Bay. Nancy wrote short stories. Women's magazines such as McCall's and Redbook normally published her works.
Robert died in 1973 and Nancy in 1980; both are interred in a Cruz Bay cemetery. The couple left the beach property to their children in their will; the land was divided among them. Ed Gibney, their first-born child, is a lifelong resident of Saint John and works as a surveyor. Eleanor is on the board of the St. John Historical Society. She too is a lifelong resident on St. John, having grown up on her family's beachfront property. For fifteen years she worked for the Caneel Bay Resort becoming the chief horticulturalist. She is the author of A Field Guide to Native Trees and Plants of East End, St. John U.S. Virgin Islands. She married Gary Ray and they have two children. The Gibney's second son, John, died in 2003. He lived on Gibney Beach, planting and tending to a garden of tropical trees. John Gibney's remains are interred on the property within his garden.