I stayed there in the first time in 1977. THe first year there was no electricity in the West End. We used "Home Sweet Home lanterns" for light. There was limited hot water for showers--water heated by the sunshine. It was rustic and incredibly quiet and beautiful! Rick's Cafe was sleepy and quiet. When you ordered a blender drink, they turned off the music because the generator couldn't handle both music and blender running at the same time. Rick's had good lobster. Restaurants took FOREVER to serve food. Walking on the road was the primary way people got around. There was hardly any car traffic. People were friendly and there weren't really any hustlers.
I believe Mirage was started by an Italian couple, Lauro and Michela. I became friends with them after they left Jamaica and we all ended up living in Paris in 1981. Their house was across the road in the garden with the rental cottages. Their house was burned to ground when they were on vacation in Italy. Michela taught yoga under the gazebo. I was introduced to them by Jack, the dentist who treated patients at his open-air house with a dentist chair on the beach. I recently contacted both of them and they haven't been back to Negril since that time.
