Epstein Temple

About

Epstein Temple refers to a blue-striped square building on Little St. James, a private island that belonged to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Due to its recognizable look, the building gained popularity as a way of referencing Jeffrey Epstein and topics related to his trafficking case in the following years, with users sneaking in the building into various edits.

Origin

On August January 5th, 2019, The Clover Chronicle^[1] reported on a massive fire that was spotted at Little St. James, a private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands owned by registered sex offender and billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, who would later that year be arrested on charges related to sex trafficking minors. The article included several photographs of a strange-temple like structure on the southwest portion of the island (photographs shown below).

On July 8th, 2019, following the arrest of Jeffrey Epstein on July 6th, journalist Jon Gabriel tweeted^[2] a photograph of the building, wondering about its purpose. The tweet (shown below) gained over 770 retweets and 2,400 likes in two years.

Spread

On July 10th, 2019, AP News^[3] posted an article with rumors about Little St. James which circulated among residents of St. Thomas, a neighboring island. One portion of the article contained hints about the nature of the building.

Epstein built […] a massive, square-shaped white building on one end of the island. Workers told each other it was a music room fitted with a grand piano and acoustic walls. Its gold dome flew off during the deadly 2017 hurricane season.

Later on the same day, Insider^[4] posted an article about the building, writing that the music room explanation was somewhat believable as Epstein was a classically-trained pianist.

On August 1sth, 2019, NBC News^[5] published an article about the building, reporting that according to 2010 permit records (shown below, left and right) the building was supposed to be music pavilion. However, the shape of the construction does not match the submitted documents.

On July 16th, 2021, an anonymous 4chan^[6] user made the earliest known humorous post about the building, making a /v/ thread in which they posted screenshots of the structure recreated in Minecraft (examples shown below).

In the following years, the building has been used online as a way of referencing Jeffrey Epstein and topics related to his trafficking case. For example, on May 25th, 2021, iFunny^[7] user Dr1ppey posted a Total Drama Island meme that gained over 29,500 smiles in six months (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References