Architects Drew Epstein an Underground Theater With an ‘Exit Tunnel’ While He Was in Jail

Architects’ drawings, permit emails and FBI search logs released by the Justice Department show hidden spaces planned for Little St. James while Epstein was in custody, and a 2011 decision not to give regulators the list of buildings they demanded.

In June 2009, seven weeks before Jeffrey Epstein left a Florida jail, the architecture firm Gensler delivered drawings for his private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands that included a stair down to a subterranean screening room and an “exit tunnel” to the basement of a guest pavilion, according to the firm’s design package in the Justice Department’s Epstein files. The records do not show that the tunnel was built. They do show that the island’s most concealed spaces were planned while Epstein was serving a sentence for procuring a minor for prostitution, and that the territory’s regulators later struggled to learn what stood on Little St. James at all.

A Feb. 3 post on X by the account Wall Street Apes, captioned “The evil design of Jeffrey Epstein Island,” called the island “absolutely insane.” It cited no records. The Justice Department’s release of 3 million more pages on Jan. 30 contains them: architects’ drawings, permit correspondence and the FBI’s own notes from its 2019 search of the island.

The timing begins in Florida. Epstein pleaded guilty on June 30, 2008, to felony solicitation of prostitution and to procurement of minors to engage in prostitution, and was jailed in Palm Beach County. From October 2008 he spent 12 hours a day on work release, and he was released from custody on July 22, 2009, according to a Justice Department review.

In that window, Gensler went to work. Its agreement with Epstein took effect “on or about January 13, 2009,” with schematic design scheduled from December 2008. It covered “New construction of a Pool Area and subterranean Screening Room,” including a 3,000-square-foot screening room, two pavilions and a dock house.

The June 4, 2009, package fills in the plan. Its scope of work lists a “new stair down to screening room,” two guest pavilions, each with a “full basement,” and, among the screening room’s support spaces, an “alternate entrance tunnel connecting to new south pavilion basement.” The floor plan labels the passage “exit tunnel” and specifies its finishes: painted plaster walls and ceilings, sheet vinyl flooring. The sheets are stamped “not for construction.”

The idea was older than the jail term. In the fall of 2007, permit records sought an expansion of the main house “complete with a new pool, spa and underground theater,” NBC News reported in 2019. Gensler has confirmed it was hired. “The design work and all communications with the Epstein organisation ended prior to any construction,” a spokesperson told The Architects’ Journal. A 2018 plan by another firm lists a “Cinema” among the main compound’s existing rooms, but it does not show whether that room lies underground.

By 2011, the territory’s coastal regulators wanted to know what had been built. On March 16, 2011, the Division of Coastal Zone Management told Epstein’s company that no more development would be approved until it submitted “a detailed inventory of all existing structures with corresponding permit numbers.” Its director, Jean-Pierre L. Oriol, wrote that there were “too many ongoing permits for this area.” By July the company had not complied, and its request to add a spa was on hold.

Epstein’s lawyer, Darren K. Indyke, explained why in a July 12, 2011, email to Epstein: “We did not respond to either request on the theory that they had no right to ask for this information as the applications were already deemed complete.” Rather than press the point, he proposed that Epstein and Cecile de Jongh meet Commissioner Alicia V. Barnes. De Jongh, the wife of then-Gov. John de Jongh, had relayed the agency’s status report. A JPMorgan court filing later described her as Epstein’s “primary conduit for spreading money and influence” in the territory’s government; she did not respond to NBC News at the time.

The island’s best-known building illustrates the gap. Drawings Epstein’s architects gave the agency showed “an octagonal 3,500-square-foot pavilion housing a grand piano,” and the permit allowed a music room, NBC News reported. What rose was a striped cube. Responding to NBC News, a department official, Marlon Hibbert, wrote, “In the link you provided the building looks rectangular and in the drawings it looked octagonal,” and said the agency’s files showed no permit request after 2011. Epstein called the building his “mosque,” the artist Ion Nicola told The New York Times.

The FBI called it something else. After Epstein’s death, an agent’s sworn affidavit described 13 groups of structures, compiled from “publicly available satellite information, images, and drone videos.” It also recounted a woman’s statement that Epstein had sexually abused her on the island before she turned 18, and a contractor’s account of seeing photographs of nude young girls in the main residence.

The search records from Aug. 12, 2019, show how little was certain. One planning map notes “Dome not seen on video footage” at the striped building and, a short distance away, marks a “Yellow Square: Potential Hidden Structure.” The agents’ worksheet reads: “FBI NY SWAT assisted with search of the temple in Zone D.” Their log records server racks in a pool house, a gym, a “utility bunker” and a grotto. It does not say what, if anything, stood under the yellow square.

FBI photographs released in December show the temple’s interior unfinished, with cement board against the walls and a mattress beside a window. Separate images that House Oversight Committee Democrats obtained from the territory’s Justice Department show what appears to be a dentist’s chair with masks on the wall, CNN reported. “These new images are a disturbing look into the world of Jeffrey Epstein and his island,” said Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif. A committee spokesperson for the Republican majority called the release selective.

The planning did not stop. In 2018, the West Palm Beach firm Radyca drew a remake of both islands. Its site plan for Great St. James places a “Ladies’ Residence” beside a “Master Retreat.” Epstein terminated the firm in June 2018, before construction began, NewsNation reported; the firm did not comment.

The point

What we found: “evil design” is a judgment the documents never make, and no released record shows that a tunnel was ever built. But the paper trail is more specific than the post. It shows an underground theater with an exit tunnel drawn for Epstein while he was serving a Florida jail sentence, a lawyer’s decision not to give regulators a list of the island’s buildings, a signature building that did not match its permit, and an FBI team in 2019 still marking a “Potential Hidden Structure” on a satellite map. The eureka is the pattern: the hidden spaces were planned in custody, the inventory that would have documented them was withheld, and on the released record no complete official list of what stood on Little St. James appears to have existed, even when federal agents arrived. That last point is our inference, and the records let readers test it.

Why it matters

According to a sworn FBI affidavit, a woman told agents that Epstein sexually abused her on Little St. James when she was a minor. Knowing what was built there, and who knew, matters for every investigation and lawsuit that still turns on the island. These records show that the U.S. Virgin Islands government asked for that knowledge in 2011 and that Epstein’s lawyers decided it had no right to it, while the man who owned the island was planning spaces no one could see from the air.

The questions

• Was the subterranean screening room or its exit tunnel ever built, by Gensler or by another contractor?
• What was the “Potential Hidden Structure” the FBI flagged beside the striped building, and what did agents find there?
• Did the Department of Planning and Natural Resources ever receive the inventory of structures it demanded in 2011?
• Who allowed a striped, domed building that did not match its music-room permit to stand for years?
• Why was Epstein commissioning concealed spaces for his island while serving a sentence for procuring a minor?

Sources

1. Little St. James Island Cabanas, Pavilions, Pool & Screening Room: 06/04/2009 80% Design Development Progress Package (EFTA00259369) U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library (Gensler drawings)
2. Gensler, Agreement for Architectural Services, Little St. James Pool Area and Screening Room, Oct. 6, 2009 (EFTA00724806) U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library (Gensler agreement)
3. Executive Summary of Report: Investigation into the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida’s Resolution of Its 2006–2008 Federal Criminal Investigation of Jeffrey Epstein U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility
4. Darren Indyke to Jeffrey Epstein, “Fwd: Little St. James,” July 12, 2011, forwarding Jean-Pierre Oriol’s permit status report (EFTA00914706) U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library
5. FBI search records for Little St. James: zone maps, administrative worksheet, photographic logs and sketches, Aug. 12, 2019 (EFTA01256974) U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library (FBI records)
6. Agent Affidavit in Support of Application for Search and Seizure Warrant, Little Saint James Island (EFTA00020141) U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library (FBI affidavit, D.V.I.)
7. FBI photograph: interior of the striped building on Little St. James (EFTA00002952) U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library (FBI photograph)
8. Radyca, Little St James and Great St James Conceptual Design Progress Submittal (EFTA00296313) U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library (Radyca drawings)
9. Ranking Member Robert Garcia Statement on Production of Photos and Videos from Epstein’s Island House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Democrats
10. Which architects appear in the Epstein files? The Architects’ Journal (Josh Butler)
11. Jeffrey Epstein, while hashing out lenient Florida deal, moved to expand island mansion NBC News (Rich Schapiro)
12. Jeffrey Epstein’s bizarre blue-striped building on private island raised alarm NBC News (Rich Schapiro)
13. JPMorgan alleges ex-Virgin Islands first lady aided Jeffrey Epstein NBC News (Chloe Atkins)
14. Epstein had plans to renovate island estate, emails show NewsNation (Diana Falzone)
15. Epstein obtained objects from Islam’s holiest site for ‘mosque’ on Little St. James The New York Times (Ephrat Livni), via The Virgin Islands Daily News
16. DOJ releases 3 million more pages of Epstein files UPI (Mike Heuer)