The Gonzo Way of Branding

Paradise Island

Branson's home in London is a 19th-century four-story Holland Park townhouse that doubles as an office. He doesn't have a driver -- he hates the idea of making someone wait for him all the time -- so he takes taxicabs around town. Like the queen, he doesn't carry cash, so the billionaire has to scrounge cab fare from colleagues. He won't carry keys, so he'll wait outside his own office until someone lets him in. He wears frayed woolen pullover sweaters, even when he goes to the House of Parliament, that bastion of formality, to address the ministers on important matters of international airline competition and regulation. At boozy London parties, Branson flirts outrageously and pulls naughty stunts such as lifting up a woman in a short cocktail dress and holding her upside down until everyone in the room can see her underwear. Oddly, the British find this perfectly charming. Americans would probably sue him.

Now that he's invading America, Branson is spending more of his time at Necker, which is closer to the States and shares a time zone with New York. (When he is not using the island for his own work or leisure, he rents it to tourists for up to $40,000 a night, which includes food, booze, and lodging for as many as a couple of dozen guests.) This summer, Branson invited the boards of Virgin Mobile USA and its partner, Sprint, to meet on the island. Dan Schulman arrived at 5 p.m. and Branson made him play three sets of tennis before dinner. Then Branson got him up at 5:30 a.m. for another match. "He's an incredibly competitive guy," Schulman says. By the end of the three-day visit, they had faced off over 10 sets of tennis, three games of chess, and a round of billiards. They raced Hobie Cats, and Branson forced him to try kite-surfing. "The actual board meeting was a picnic in comparison," Schulman says. "When I come back from Necker, it takes a week for my body to recover."

On a weekday at Necker in May, Branson got up before dawn and settled into his "office," the oversized white hammock in the Great House. When he bought Necker at age 25 for $300,000, there was only one lonely palm tree on the island. Since then he has imported so many that it looks more South Pacific than Caribbean.

Beginning around 5:00 a.m., Branson made a couple of hours of phone calls to the UK, where it was still late morning. Then he played tennis by the beach before returning to the hammock to resume his calls when the Americans on the East Coast were just getting into the office. He frequently made himself fresh pots of hot tea. He called himself a "tea addict." By 1:30 his workday was done, and he had lunch outside with his wife, Joan. He limited himself to a small bowl of curried pumpkin soup, passing up the Greek salad and spicy chicken samosas prepared by the island's superb chefs. That afternoon he walked down a path to the beach to rendezvous with his personal watersports instructor for his daily lesson in kite-surfing. The idea is that the kite catches the wind, like a sail, and propels the surfer at high speeds along the water.

His instructor was pleased with Branson's rapid progress. He said that Branson actually listens to his comments and fixes what he's doing wrong, unlike many students. Afterward, Branson hurried to play more tennis before joining the live-in staff of 10 for dinner beneath a bright full moon.

Even after-hours on the island, Branson was much more subdued and well behaved than during his raucous nights of London partying. Perhaps it was because he was trying to get "ship shape" while on the island. Even at the beach, he poured guests Chassagne-Montrachet but passed on the fine white Burgundy himself. "When I'm here, normally I misbehave myself atrociously," he said. "On this particular trip, I've decided to cleanse myself. I'm trying to do a month without drinking at the moment. Very dull, very boring."

Maybe he was uncharacteristically restrained because his wife was there, too, quaffing Dom Perignon with the island's young British staffers and talking about the Martha Stewart case and Dominick Dunne's profiles of the rich and powerful in Vanity Fair. Two of the gorgeous female attendants looked very much as Joan must have appeared 30 years ago, but Branson wasn't flirtatious or outrageous this time.