``This is a nice marriage between science and commerce and luxury and demand," said Harry Chancey Jr., who along with his partner, David Oxford, has operated Kingsbrae Arms in St. Andrews since 1996. (Previously, they ran Centennial House, a luxurious bed- and- breakfast in East Hampton, N.Y.)
Years of dwindling catches in the Caspian Sea, combined with intense fishing pressure from organized black-market rings, prompted the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species last month to block shipments of prized sturgeon eggs from Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan , and to significantly reduce exports from nations that harvest sturgeon from the Black Sea. Limited exports of sturgeon are still permitted from Iran.
The fish being served at Kingsbrae Arms are short-nosed sturgeon grown by Supreme Sturgeon & Caviar, a local firm and one of only a few in North America to specialize in farm-raised sturgeon. It has 50,000 of the slow-growing, prehistoric-looking fish living in tanks at its sprawling facility, and is about to harvest their eggs for the first time.
The caviar, which is expected to have a nutty flavor and a firm grain, will sell for about $1,100 per pound. Caviar harvested from wild sturgeon sells for as much as $250 per ounce.
``I am very excited about this," said Chancey, a former executive with the Public Broadcasting Service in New York. ``This is a classic farm-to-table story."
The locally produced caviar will join other local and regional delicacies, including clams, crab, lobster, mussels, salmon, and scallops, on the menu at Kingsbrae Arms, an 1897 hilltop manor where rooms run from about $700 to $1,175 per night.
Chancey and Oxford bought the property in 1995 after stopping in St. Andrews on a tour of the Maritimes . The picturesque charm and natural beauty of the town appealed to them, and they were struck, too, by its opulence . St. Andrews' estates are reminiscent of Newport, albeit on a smaller scale; the town is on a peninsula between the St. Croix River and Passamaquoddy Bay, south of Calais, Maine.
``Suddenly, I found myself thinking that maybe this was just the type of place we were looking for," said Chancey, who was tired of congested Hamptons summers.
