Once upon a time, the lush coastline of St. Mary was home to the Taíno people, whose canoes glided along the crystal sea. With the dawn of the 1500s, the Spaniards built Puerto Santa Maria—one of Jamaica’s first towns—on these very rocks. Centuries later, after intense battles like those at Rio Nuevo, the English took hold, reshaping St. Mary into a tapestry of plantations—first sugar, then bananas—and vibrant free villages led by heroes such as Reverend James Phillippo and the brave Maroons.
A Vision by the Sea
Enter 1949: Abraham “Abe” Issa, son of Jerusalem émigrés and later dubbed “The Father of Jamaican Tourism,” saw promise where the world saw wilderness. He built the Tower Isle Hotel, the very first resort on Jamaica’s undeveloped north coast.
“Abe Issa had a dream: to give Jamaica a stage worthy of its beauty. Tower Isle was that stage.”
He then pioneered the all-inclusive, couples-only model—anchoring the essence of romance and tranquility at what became Couples Tower Isle in 197…
