Beachshack: Tropical Building Page

St Barts Renovation:
Azu Villa

Anguilla Construction:
Guest cottage.
Tech center.
Residence.

Mary Ann's Tropical Building Page

This is the web site for the three villas that I built on Anguilla and the villa that I am renovating in St Barts (see Azu Villa Renovation Page), plus tropical construction tips and resources as well. These construction projects started in 1997, although land acquisition and architectural planning started in 1995. Every stage of the construction is recorded here.

We rent the villa in St Barts and the guest cottage in Anguilla (La Vanda) and the villa at the top of the Anguilla property (Mimosa), but we keep the beachfront house and pool for our own use. And we have created a name and web page for the overall completed property: Bellamare

For details on the main Anguilla beachfront house, visit the Residence Construction Page.

For the technology center, visit the "Clubhouse" Construction Page.

And finally, for the guest cottage, our first attempt at construction on Anguilla, visit the La Vanda Construction Page.

-- Mary Ann Green

Construction Tips

Saturday, May 20, 2000 Permalink

Windows!
We are using louvered wood windows, similar to the doors described earlier. They are purchased in Puerto Rico but are made in Brazil. We put a matching curved window above most of the windows, as shown in the picture below.
When we started this project these curved wooden windows were readily available from Puerto Rico lumber yards in many sizes (the height was always 16"). Of course when we went to purchase ours, the windows were all gone. So our master carpenter Columbus (Kenneth Maynard) and his crew built them for us from scratch. We plan to put unbreakable lexan in the openings. This allows light into the house even when the shutters are closed.
Below is a picture of Cullis, another carpenter on Columbus' team, studying the wooden doors and windows in the master suite.

Wednesday, May 17, 2000 Permalink

Serendipity Ceiling. When Chici built the forms for the concrete roof of the laundry building, he used scrap plywood and 2x4s. Once it was up, it had a certain rustic charm, even though it was intended to be only temporary. So we had it plastered and painted to make a fake ceiling for the concrete roof!

Tuesday, May 16, 2000 Permalink

Garden Courtyards!
It all started with Cap Juluca. We drove to the other end of Anguilla and spent one night in luxury for our anniversary. We loved the garden off the bathroom. Then we built our Ginger Villa garden courtyard. Now every bathroom will have its own walled garden.
The master bath is very special. It has a 12 foot door that will open completely onto a wall garden. Here you can see the louvered wooden doors, without the garden!
Here is Chici's crew building the raised garden and its walls.
Notice the nice plinth.
Here is a picture of the 12 foot opening from the bathroom out to the garden. We have huge bamboo poles that we got in Dominica to build a screened roof for the garden. That should keep the insects out so that you can leave the doors open all the time.
Space in the garden for the hot tub! And the walls are carefully sized so that no one can see into the garden from the road above.