This is everyday in St. John.

An island 9 miles by 9 miles and two thirds are owned by the National Park Service. Every person visiting dreams of what it would be like to let go of their present life. To let go of all their stress and move to this tropical oasis.

I moved to St. John in 1983. It was a vagabond existence. For a year I rented a house in Coral Bay and also lived on a boat in Cruz Bay, the main port of St. John. I looked at land but really didn’t have any money to invest. I moved back to the states and saved my money. Two years later I took a week vacation to St. John with a friend. Our intention was to see if buying land on St. John was an option. We drove around with a few different realtors and found that most things were out of our price range.

It was overlooked due to the fact we said we built it after Hurricane Hugo had caused so much destruction to the island and we had no place to live. The deck became a shack and later more was added to make it a good size cabin. It never had running water or an indoor bathroom. So we continued to call it a construction shed.

We saved up $5,000 over the next few years and decided to build a house. I had wanted a yurt but my partner wanted a concrete house. He was from the islands and wanted a strong island house. That strong island house was much more expensive than my yurt so we ask relatives for loans.  No one had any extra money at that time, so we took the $5,000 and started building what we could.

Seeing that we were serious, an ex-mother-in-law decided to loan us another $10,000. Oh the power of letting the universe know you are making steps toward your dreams. If you sit and wait for it to happen most the time it won’t. If you put something, most important your heart into it, the universe will respond. Not always when you think.

Just be patient and give thanks for what you have and keep moving forward. We did move forward and my partner and I and my children all put a lot of mental and physical energy into building this house. Block by block. Shovel load by shovel load. My partner would mix the cement while I drove to the nearby island of St. Thomas to pick up another SUV load of supplies. My car was always loaded to the fullness with babies and young boys and building supplies. We would pay the $50 barge fee to cross the harbor to Red Hook, St Thomas and then I would drive to all the stores necessary.

It took us almost five years to finish the house. We loved it. It had a large flat yard. You didn’t find many flat yards in the mountainous island. We had built a large open kitchen-living room with a cathedral ceiling made out of cedar. The cedar was hand stained and sealed. There was a large cupola with a were small windows that surrounded the breezes and letting out hot air that had risen in the house during the heat of the day. It also provided a release of air when the house was boarded up for hurricanes. After Hurricane Hugo we boarded up often as many hurricanes passed over us or near us over the next 15 years. I always felt safe in that house. The whole neighborhood would come over to seek safety from the storms. Most storms just threatened to come. Those that came never caused any real damage to us. 

This was the first house for all of us. We had always paid rent up till the shack. Now we had a house with solid walls that could handle most anything including hurricanes that passed our way. It felt good.

Suddenly out of nowhere I had a desire to live in an area of the island called Zootenvaal. I was driving by it like I had a million times before. But this time it was different. This time I wanted to live there.  I thought it was a passing phase so I tried to ignore it. It kept presenting itself to me. A friend told me of a large parcel in Zootenvaal that had been on the market for 10 years.

It was six acres of land. Many groups of people had tried to buy it as a group but it never worked out. Mostly due to the variable terrain of the piece. It was shaped like a dinosaur. It had everything from 100 year old ruins on it to a 2 story black rock that stood up from the earth with sprinkles of much smaller rocks all around it.  Parts of the land had views of Coral Bay Harbor with all the boats anchored. Other pieces of land had water views of Hurricane Hole and the long stretch of land owned by the National Park. It also included the peak of the mountain. I debated on if I should purchase this land. I only had $675.00 in the bank. I couldn’t qualify for a bank loan. We just were getting settled in the house we worked for 5 years to complete.

I spoke with the owner and found we had similar plans of what we wanted for the land. I wanted to build a spiritual retreat center. I wanted to keep the land in as natural of a state as possible. He had always wanted it to be a campground. He agreed to give us owner financing. My dad agreed to loan us the down payment with no strings attached as to what I did with the land. I still wasn’t sure. I released the land two separate times and it kept pushing its way to us so we finally succumbed to it and bought it. Soon the day would come to sign papers that the lawyer had prepared. To get ready for that day I spent many hours on various days at a government building called Cadastral.

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