Visit our home in Montserrat.
April 1, 1987 – April Fool’s but we sure didn’t feel like fools. We made a huge decision, fired our jobs and made the move. Bill was still deciding between Montserrat and Nevis, but I had my mind made up.
I had fallen in love with Montserrat on our first visit and all my positive feelings kept being reinforced.
We rented a lovely old wood house in Old Town, the same one in which we vacationed about six months earlier. Then we started searching for a permanent place. First we looked at some of the villas on the market: they were too big, too small, had no view, were way too touristy with all white tiles and white leather sectionals, or way too expensive. Ok, I confess: as an architect I get very picky and specific about what I like; particularly since this was to be our dream place, where we were going to live forever after.
It didn’t take too long to decide that we were going to build our own place; I was sure I could bring it in on our budget with some careful designing. The next step was to find the right piece of land. As I mentioned in my previous blog, in Montserrat non-Nationals can only purchase in the development areas (unless they receive an exemption) that are large, beautifully located large tracts of land along the West coast, subdivided into serviced lots. Today only the adjacent areas named Isles Bay, Old Town, Olveston and Woodlands are available (click here for a map).
Our real estate agent, Jacquie Ryan (yes, she is the same one working with us now for the online auction of this same home) told us to find the lot we wanted and then she would try to get it for us. This seemed a much better solution than being limited by what was for sale. Armed with a map of Montserrat with five foot contour lines (this gave us the elevation for any location) and a compass, we started our search. Bill gave me some impossible critera: a view both sunrise and sunset all year’round and a lot of privacy.
We loved Isles Bay. It was Montserrat’s platinum coast, the most desirable location. It is a steep hill south of Belham Valley (where the golf course was located at that time) with some spectacular views, particularly from the top. We could see most of Montserrat: the Soufriere Hills, Windy Hill, Old Town, and all the way North to St. Peters. To our disappointment most of the land has already been sold and whatever remained was expensive, difficult to build on, and nowhere near as desirable as the properties at the very top.
Going North, the next development area (the oldest one) was Old Town, home of the Vue Point Hotel (THE hotel in this area and a great place for buffet dinners and Sunday brunches), and Old Road Bay beach. This was a lovely, dark sand beach used by visitors and locals alike, a great place to meet people, have a drink or lunch at the beach bar and generally just enjoy being in Montserrat. Because it was in the hub of expat and tourist activities, Old Town was fairly well built up and expensive. We decided quickly that this was not for us.
The next development North of Old Town was Olveston. It is relatively flat and as I located the properties on our map, it was obvious that a privacy issue may crop up as people would eventually build next to us or in front of us, blocking our views. The properties that would have been interesting were already taken.
We finally came to the development furthest North: Woodlands. We were now in the “country.” We thought it was a beautiful area where many properties were located in the mountains running along the center of Montserrat. We climbed through a lot of “bush” looking for that perfect piece of land. And, with the help of our map and a lot of work drawing site lines, we found it.
Our perfect lot was on Mango Drive. I had a first inkling of its potential from the map. It was not cleared. When we drove to it, all we saw was bush. Bill, with a cutlass he didn’t know how to use was going to make a path for us. That didn’t happen. We crawled over broken branches, up and up, until we reached what appeared to be the top. Each time I stopped and looked in the direction of the Caribbean, I thought I saw bits of blue. I also thought that I could detect the top of Isles Bay Hill. The potential was awesome.
Did we find our dream property or were we going to make a huge mistake?
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