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

Friday, April 26, 2002 Permalink

Email Correspondence.
Dear Maryann,
I was delighted to find your website! We are close to buying a house in Anguilla, it is more modest than yours but should serve the purpose of a winter "getaway" quite well- two bedrooms, two baths, living room, kitchen, lots of closets. 5 minute walk from the beach. We do have a few questions.
The two model homes have cisterns that are only 12,000 gallons. We have asked the builder to increase the size to 25,000 gallons. Will this be enough The roof is to be made of poured concrete, what can be done to insulate against sun's heat?
Use white reflective Elastomeric roof coat available in Anguilla or Home Depot.
We will have to supply stove, fridge, furniture. What is the best way to do this? Should we buy in the states and have it shipped?
GE appliances are available from Haskins Exspan in Anguilla. You can ask them for a quote and check that against prices available in states- plus shipping, plus 25% duty. One piece of advise DO NOT ORDER FURNITURE or appliances until you SEE the house is ready- not when they say it will be ready. Every unfinished house I go into seems to be full of furniture that arrived too early and is now getting dirty, dusty, and damaged. As the saying goes "If your in a hurry in the Islands- don't start."
Can goats be kept out with electric fence?
No. If you don't live here, keep your garden very very simple and goat proof.
Good luck, Mary Ann

House Warming Party.
We finally got the main house done "enough" to have some friends come for Christmas, although the hot water was not run to one tub and the phones don't work and a few other details are incomplete). So we had two house warming parties, one for the people who helped with the construction and another for the neighbors who had wondered what we were building. Here are some pictures from the party, click any of these small pictures to enlarge it.

The food at our construction party was catered by Vernon Hughes (E's Oven) and the food pictured above was cooked by Spiros our neighbor (see picture below).