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

Thursday, September 30, 2004 Permalink

Work on the Bedrooms
At our Azu Villa in St Barth, we are living in bedroom 3 (upper floor, lower bungalow), but have been working hard on improving the other 3 bedrooms. For example, here is the new paint on the interior of unit 1 (upper floor, upper bungalow): aqua walls with white trim and shutters, with new white mesh screens.

Each bedroom had an air conditioner, but one of them was just too old; it was replaced with a brand new Panasonic (we like quiet airco such as the split units from Panasonic or Daikin). The bathroom has new mirrow, new toilet, new wall treatment (pictures as soon as the towel bars, etc are installed).
The tile and railings on the deck of bedroom 1 needed replacing; here is the new stone deck surface. Check back in the archives for the picture of the tree growing out of the deck surface (it is gone now)!

The downstairs units (2 and 4) now have new cedar ceilings, paint and trim. Makes them more warm and comfy. Plus they get new fans.

Tuesday, September 28, 2004 Permalink

Our Dogs Help With Construction
Bobo and Flash came over with us from Anguilla on a small charter plane. They thought it was just like taking a ride in the car: when we opened the door of the plane, they just jumped in! Getting the dogs into St Barts requires health certificates from Anguilla vet (although no one asked to see them) and getting them back into Anguilla requires an Import document from the Agriculture Dept (and probably a health certificate from a French vet if you are gone a while).

If you look closely at the photo of Bobo above, you will see that she is wearing pearls. This is to bolster her self-esteem versus all these tiny, coiffed French dogs. Flash has no problems: he has made friends with all the workers.

Monday, September 27, 2004 Permalink

New Stucco
The bungalow that contains bedroom suites 1 and 2 had not been updated since it was built 34 years ago (unlike suites 3 and 4, which were updated after Hurricane Luis). The outside finish was quite aged looking. We decided to stucco it with the same yellow Marbletite (the color is actually called "jute"). So again we had our 20 excess bags of stucco sent over from Anguilla on the Karma.

Here is what the final result looks like after the stucco dried (you can also see that they are starting on a new railing for upstairs):

Sunday, September 26, 2004 Permalink

The Saga of the Kitchen
We started out by just wanting to replace the grout between the kitchen tiles and do a quick paint job. We ended up redoing almost everything! Here we are looking in through the window (the louvers have been removed to make the kitchen brighter and more open to the pool), watching Mary Ann and her carpenter Timoty discussing what they can salvage from the old kitchen.

They decided to save very little!

We sent over some unused kitchen cabinets from Anguilla on the Karma to replace the existing cabinets. Timoty built counter tops and shelves to tie everything together.

As we did with our places in Anguilla, we used arches and small lattice work (sent over on the boat), to add charm to the kitchen.

For the counters and backsplash, we used white and turquoise 4x4 tiles.

Here you can see the new kitchen, with the window tiled and turned into a counter, and with hurricane shutters added.

And here is the kitchen as seen from the living room.

The new kitchen has a fan, new lights and new stove, but still needs to be painted and to have the Sub-zero refrigerator arrive from Miami and be installed (it will be interesting getting it down the steps, since it weighs over 600 lbs).