I have great news for those of you who enjoy spending time at The Windmill Bar! They recently expanded and added even more shade! Great news all around!
The Windmill Bar is located about two miles outside of Cruz Bay on Centerline Road, which is known as Route 10 on the map. It opened about three years ago and quickly became a popular spot due to its breathtaking views of Hawksnest Bay, Lovango, Congo, Mingo and Grass cays, St. Thomas, and more. It’s especially popular at sunset, which is currently happening at 6:11 p.m. It has great drinks and food too. I eat the buffalo chicken dip up there more than I should!
A brand new deck was recently completed, adding a ton of new seating. They’re in the process of adding a new roof over it, so there will be extra shade too. They’re replacing the white tent (which could be a tad noisy in the wind) with a new permanent roof too. Check out a few pics…
A roof is being built over the new deck.
This tent is being replaced with a permanent roof.
And here are a few pics from the rest of the place…
This seat’s open… any takers?
Looks pretty great, doesn’t it?
I bring my island tour guests up to The Windmill Bar regularly. If you are looking to take a St. John island tour or you would like to check out The Windmill Bar with me, please feel free to email me at jenn@explorestj.com. You can learn more about my St. John island tours at www.explorestj.com/tour.
It’s been 2,211 days since Hurricane Irma destroyed Caneel Bay Resort. The property is supposed to be turned over to the National Park Service in less than a week, per Laurance Rockefeller’s wishes, yet its future continues to remain uncertain. It’s a battle that’s been playing out in federal court over in St. Thomas for the past 14 months, and it’s one that will most likely be decided at a bench trial next month.
Laurance Rockefeller opened Caneel Bay Resort on the same day that the Virgin Islands National Park was established in 1956. (Prior to that, the property consisted of a few cottages.) In 1983, the United States entered into an Indenture that gave most of the land on which Caneel Bay Resort sits to the United States while the Jackson Hole Preserve (a nonprofit created by Rockefeller) retained the use of the property and its improvements for a period of 40 years. That 40-year agreement expires this Saturday, and the property is supposed to be under the control of the Virgin Islands National Park beginning this Sunday. But none of this is happening due to a federal court case filed by EHI Acquisitions, LLC, the firm that currently controls the now-defunct hotel.
EHI Acquisitions filed a federal lawsuit against the United States of America in June 2022. In the lawsuit, EHI requested that the court issue a “quiet title in the Property and issue an order declaring the United States has no legal interest in the Property and that Plaintiff EHI Acquisitions, LLC owns all right, title, an interest to the Property.” EHI said it would give the property to the United States for $70 million and an agreement by the United States to absolve EHI from environmental claims related to the property. The United States said absolutely not, and now EHI believes that since it made a “good faith offer” that the United States rejected, the property should be lawfully theirs. The two sides have been battling it out in court ever since.
(A quiet title action is a special legal proceeding to determine ownership of real property.)
What’s Happening Now
The two sides are currently sparring over insurance proceeds, what constitutes a good faith offer, and who should be considered an “expert witness.”
The United States wants to know how much insurance money EHI received from hurricanes Irma and Maria. It also wants to know how those proceeds were used. EHI stated in the court documents that it was “not relevant to any claim” and that it “will not produce any such information.” The judge sided with EHI and ruled that it did not have to disclose this information.
Interesting side note: Gary Engle, a principal for EHI publicly stated in February 2019 that the insurance proceeds “would be more than a fair return for our involvement in Caneel Bay.” He continued, “I could take the money and walk away.”
But he didn’t. He chose to file a federal lawsuit demanding even more money instead.
Regarding the “good faith offer” of $70 million, both sides are arguing whether the offer was “good faith” or “fair market value.” EHI believed its offer was made in good faith while the United States is arguing that there shouldn’t be any “compensation or consideration or payment or fair market value or any value.” Point blank, they believe the property should change hands this weekend.
And lastly, they’re squabbling over an “expert witness” funded by EHI acquisitions. This “expert witness” is the man who was hired to do an appraisal of the property’s improvements to determine their fair market value. That appraisal led to EHI’s “good faith offer” of $70 million.
This is sooooo messy!
The next response deadline is this Thursday, and the bench trial is scheduled for October 16th at 9 a.m. The clock is ticking! You know I’ll keep you all posted. 🙂
Want to know more about Caneel Bay, the history of the resort, and its future should the National Park take ownership? Please check out my previous posts below:
Get to know St. John. Visit beautiful beaches & centuries-old plantations. Perhaps stop at a tiki bar or two. Full & half days available. Rated “Excellent” on TripAdvisor. 2023 & 2022 TripAdvisor Travelers’ Choice Winner. Learn more here –> www.explorestj.com/tour
The students at JESS have brand new gardens this year, thanks to you!
I have such great news to share with all of you. Thanks to all of you, the teachers at St. John’s only public school, now have the school supplies they need to properly educate our children this year!
There are three schools here on St. John. Julius E. Sprauve School, commonly called JESS, is our only public school. It educates children through 8th grade. Students attending public high school take the ferry to St. Thomas every day. We have a second, smaller school in Cruz Bay, the St. John Christian Academy, and that, too, is elementary only. Gifft Hill School, located about two miles outside of town, is the only school that educates students from two years old through 12th grade. Both Gifft Hill and St. John Christian Academy are private, so they can be costly for many families.
As of this week, more than 160 packages have been received, containing more than 500 items. The value of these items is more than $16,000! How amazing is that??!!
“My office has looked like an Amazon shipping warehouse for the last month,” joked Julie King, a St. John resident, who helped spearhead this year’s Clear the List initiative.
According to Julie, more packages on are the way which is just incredible.
Honestly, I cannot thank you all enough for your continued support of this island and our residents. When we ask for school supplies, you show up. When we ask you to purchase raffle tickets to support our nonprofits, you show up. When we needed an extraordinary amount of support after the 2017 hurricanes, you showed up. I am so thankful!
Have a great day everyone!
Looking to take a St. John island tour?
Get to know St. John. Visit beautiful beaches & centuries-old plantations. Perhaps stop at a tiki bar or two. Full & half days available. Rated “Excellent” on TripAdvisor. 2023 & 2022 TripAdvisor Travelers’ Choice Winner. Learn more here –> www.explorestj.com/tour
Hello everyone, and happy Monday! I read a post on one of the tourist-focused Facebook pages recently that asked what it’s really like to live on St. John. After the second sleepless night due to another WAPA outage, I thought today would be the perfect day to let you in on a few island-living secrets.
Let’s start with WAPA. This is our power company, which stands for the Virgin Islands Water & Power Authority. It is unbelievably unreliable, yet we pay some of the highest electricity costs in the world. How fun is that? Our power plant is located by the airport in St. Thomas. The power crosses the island and then goes under the water from Red Hook to Frank Bay, which is in Cruz Bay. The power plant in St. Thomas is antiquated and goes offline more than I wish it would. We had a stretch last season when we didn’t lose power for months, which was amazing. Well, that amazingness has ended.
Something’s happening over at the power plant on St. Thomas, which is prompting “scheduled” blackouts. But does anything really stick to a schedule in the islands? Nope. So neither are these outages.
We first lost power on Saturday night around 8 p.m. There are two feeders in St. John. I lost my power at 8 p.m. and it came back on at 10 p.m. The second feeder lost power at 10 p.m. and it came on at midnight, I think. We lost power a second time that evening sometime around 2-4 a.m.
The power went out again yesterday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., and again from 11 p.m. until about 2 a.m. It went off again while I was sleeping and then just came back on at 7:15 a.m. as I am writing this. I think Nate Fletcher said it best a few minutes ago…
For those of you who are vacationing on St. John today, give everyone you run into some slack. We’re all very tired.
You’re probably thinking, well get a generator. We do have a generator, but the extension cord that we use with it is over at our construction site in Fish Bay. Island life! 🙂
Here are a few other island life moments from over the years…
I woke up one morning to a frog launching off of my head and onto a nearby window. I’m still not sure how he even got into our bedroom.
About a year or so back, Dalton asked me to come outside to check out the beautiful flower he found in the front yard. It was a very large and fuzzy tarantula, not a flower at all. We put a bucket over it, and daddy relocated it when he got home from work.
You know the bug that killed the Baobob tree here on St. John? It’s called a mango borer beetle. Well, one walked by my front door one day, and it was the size of a small kitten!
I was chatting with friends who purchased a home here a few years ago. When I started complaining about the state of the shower in our new house, they informed me that their house didn’t even have a working bathroom when they moved in, which meant they had to number two in a bucket outside for the first few months of living there. But we’re living in paradise, right?!
Oh and then there was the time that a family of bats moved into my house when I was in the States giving birth to Dalton. They made a home in the wall right behind my bed, so I would hear them squeaking every time I fed Dalton in the middle of the night. We finally were able to get them out of the wall (safely and without hurting any of them), but one of them didn’t get the memo. I was washing my hands in the bathroom that was attached to our room a few mornings later when the water splashed back into my face. I looked down and there was a little baby bat in the sink. He, too, was removed from our house safely. 🙂
Random fact: The bat is the only mammal that is native to St. John.
All of this being said, I still love it here. But life on St. John isn’t always easy. You’re going to sweat at night, have frogs on your head, bats in your wall, and who knows what else, but it’s worth it for many of us, because this place really is paradise. Not to mention it’s fun to commiserate with your friends and other residents on social media at all hours of the night when we’re having sleepless nights due to WAPA. We’re in this together, folks!
And for those of you who are planning a vacation here, there is no reason to second guess visiting us. Most vacation rentals have generators, so you’re good. And I’m fairly certain that they do not have frogs in the bedrooms or bats in the walls.
That’s it for today, folks! I am going to charge everything under the sun in this house now, because I’m losing power again at 11 a.m. Yay WAPA!
For those of you who love St. John and love its beauty to adorn your walls, the time has come to purchase your 2024 St. John calendars!
Coconut Coast Studios
Elaine Estern, owner of Coconut Coast Studios which is located in Frank Bay, recently released her 2024 watercolor calendar along with TJ Schutt. The calendar features 12 beautiful watercolor images with scenes below and above our Caribbean waters. Elaine’s 2024 version is titled “St. John’s Feathers & Fins.”
Coconut Coast Studios has an amazing view of Frank Bay, including year-round sunsets. Elaine installed a webcam last year, so you can check it out 24/7. Please visit Explore STJ’s webcam page at www.ExploreSTJ.com/webcams to see this webcam plus more than 20 others located throughout St. John.
Christian Wheatley Photography
Christian Wheatley is an amazingly talented photographer here on St. John, and he, too, has released his 2024 calendar. His calendar includes 12 stunning images taken around St. John, including Honeymoon and Salt Pond bays. Christian is selling his calendar on Amazon for $19.99. Click here to purchase Christian’s calendar and to see more images.
Steve Simonsen Photography
Steve Simonsen is another one of St. John’s best photographers. He and his wife Janet are accepting preorders for their 2024 calendar. His calendar also features 12 beautiful images taken over the past year on St. John. Steve is selling his calendar on his website for $37. Click here to purchase this item. Steve has other items available to purchase, including his popular coffee table book Living Art.
Want to see daily images & videos from St. John? Follow Explore STJ on social media.
I am looking forward to the day I can finally relax in our new house, aptly named Snail’s Pace.
Today marks the third week that I am officially a St. John homeowner. A lot has happened over the past three weeks, so I thought I’d post a little update for all of you who are curious about what owning a home actually entails on this island.
Let’s start with living space. The home we bought had a whopping 622 square feet of living space, and that included a screened-in porch, which really isn’t living space in my opinion. Talk about tiny! This is what $475,000 buys you on St. John, folks! We’ve been living in a one-bedroom apartment for three years (due to St. John’s insane rental market), so we knew that we could make this work.
But before we moved in, we needed to make space for two bedrooms. I thought the easiest and most cost-effective way to do this would be to enclose the screened-in porch and convert that into two very small bedrooms. It’s really going to be one large bedroom with some sort of non-permanent partition due to building codes, but we will make it work! Where there’s a will, there’s a way!
We are unbelievably lucky in that one of St. John’s best builders just happens to be our neighbor. He graciously offered his knowledge, so we knew how to best enclose that space. We were able to get this done in one week, which is pretty incredible here on St. John.
The original screened-in porchProgress!
Now onto the main living space. The kitchen was a bit tired and the appliances were older, so we decided to renovate this space completely. Well, let’s just say this was easier in my mind than in real life. This part really reminded me of those home improvement shows on TV where they keep finding little things wrong. Well, every “wrong” thing costs money, so I now temporarily renamed the home The Money Pit – lol. Its real name is Snail’s Pace. 🙂
For example, there wasn’t tile under some of the cabinets, so I need to figure that out. The way the cabinets were screwed to the wall meant huge chunks of sheetrock needed to be repaired after the old ones were removed. You know, fun things like that. Lucky for us, another neighbor is unbelievably handy and is helping us fix this part of our mess.
Such a mess! But more progress!
All of this being said, we have made tremendous progress in three weeks. We enclosed the porch, installed six actual windows where screens used to be, and removed the old kitchen cabinets and appliances. The taping (compound?) and sanding on the new sheetrock are almost complete and painting should start in the next day or two. Our new kitchen cabinets are being delivered in Miami today, so maybe if the stars align, they will be on island next week… fingers crossed! I don’t know everyone, but I think I may have a new house to live in soon!
The clock is ticking. We are supposed to be out of our Gifft Hill apartment and completely moved into this new house by the end of the month. Wish me luck!
I’ve taken a few weeks off of my island tours to focus on the house because time is of the essence here. And forgive me for not writing as much as I would like to, but we’re in a time crunch here. I’m basically playing general contractor while Mike is making people’s dreams come true over at The Beach Bar every day. It’s hot, I’m dirty, I’m sweaty, and I feel like I’ve been covered with sheetrock dust for days, but you know what, I’m loving every minute of it!
