Principality of New Utopia 

PRINCE LAZARUS RULES THE WAVES

An Article in the "INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY"

(A British Publication)

By Tim Hulse

Published in the 31 MAY 1998 Issue, "THE SUNDAY REVIEW" Magazine Section, Pages 4 through 7

Reprinted with permission. 
Page 1 

 
Somewhere in the
Caribbean one man's
dream is taking shape:
New Utopia will be a
country built on concrete
stilts, an artificial island
where greed is good
and tax is a dirty word.

Tim Hulse meets the
man who would be king.

  IOS Article Picture of Prince Lazarus
 
"Imagine a city state in the middle of the Caribbean, made possible by 21st-century technology and surrounded by, and interspersed with, canals of clear, blue water, a clean and beautiful place to live and raise families. Visualize, if you will, an oasis in the middle of the ocean: office buildings, hotels, theaters and shopping centres, sitting slightly above the sea in neat rows surrounded by greenery and flowers. This is a new country, which will be built in a moderately tropical sea, a perfect climate, a paradise: Utopia!" -- words of welcome from the official web site of the principality of New Utopia.
 
"SEE THAT one? It's bigger than Grand Cayman," says Prince Lazarus Long, pointing to a blob on the map pinned to the wall in front of us. The blob sits in the northern Caribbean, to the south-west of the Cayman Islands, and represents the Misteriosa Bank, which is something most people would call a reef but which Prince Lazarus prefers to call an underwater island. It's the largest of the three reefs in the area which together add up to a surface area of 285 square miles. The Prince first came across their existence about four years ago and they were exactly what he'd been looking for in order to bring to fruition a remarkable scheme which he first hatched a decade ago. At their shallowest point, they're only a foot or so beneath the sea. More importantly they lie more than 100 miles from any other country, which means they're in international waters. And Prince Lazarus has laid claim to them as the site of his planned capitalist paradise: New Utopia.
 
Later this year, if everything goes to plan, a construction company will begin pouring piles at 30 ft intervals onto these virgin reefs. Then precast-concrete platforms will be placed on top of them, and on top of these a city will be erected. Plans for the initial stage of development include 1,200 apartments, a 350,000 sq ft shopping mall, five hotels, a bank, a 150,000 sq ft medical centre, a casino, a convention centre and a university offering scholarships to students from every country in the world.
 
There will be no taxes in New Utopia, with the single exception of an import duty on consumable goods, nor will there be any kind of welfare system. A constitutional sovereignty, the country will be run by a board of governors appointed by the Prince himself. Currently these governors are scattered around the world, awaiting the time when they can formally take up their posts. All of them, the Prince told me, are experts in their chosen fields.
  The first phase of construction is scheduled to be completed by the beginning of September next year and on 1 December 1999, the new country's first birthday celebrations will be held. Prince Lazarus will be crowned and will bestow titles upon those who have helped to make New Utopia a reality. A host of celebrity guests will be invited who will be able to watch the inaugural New Utopia speedboat grand prix and generally marvel at this glittering monument to free enterprise. Maybe they'll take a ride on one of the numerous water taxis that will ply the city's canals, or maybe they'll just go for a stroll in the park and admire the hugh, three sided water wall at its centre. This will be the veritable totem of New Utopia, for each of its sides will represent one of the new country's main sources of income: the banking and insurance industries; a state-of-the-art anti-ageing medical centre; and tourism.
 
That's the plan, at any rate. At the moment, New Utopia is more science fiction than science fact. Indeed it sounds like the deranged idea of a raving crank, but in fact it's being put together along sound business lines by a man with a successful record of entrepreneurship. Prince Lazaus has no doubts that his new realm will rise from the sea. "There is nothing, no law, that can stop me," he told me. "If for some reason it's slowed down or postponed, I'll still make it happen. It's something that needs to happen.
 
We were talking in the unlikely setting for the headquarters of this grand enterprise, an unprepossessing house in a quiet cul-de-sac in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In the ramshackle living room which is the nerve centre of the operation, there's a flag of New Utopia on the wall (blue, with a white star surrounded by gold laurel leaves), and beneath it sits a computer, which for the moment is the only means of reaching the principality of New Utopia. It currently exists simply as a web site, a virtual country floating in the ether of hyperspace, but any day now, if everything goes to plan, it will start to become a physical reality.
 
quot;Pioneers have always ended up either full or arrows or with a lot of real estate," the 66-year-old Prince told me as he sucked on his pipe. "I've done both in my time, but this time I'm gonna end up with all the real estate. I'm pioneering something I can be proud of. I hope to have a lot of fun. I've had a lot of fun so far in putting it together, and at my age it's the sense of achievement that's important, not the money."
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Last Updated: Sunday August 23, 1998 at 19:32 CT Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998 By The Principality of New Utopia. All rights reserved. The article is copyright © 1998 By the Independent On Sunday. All rights reserved.