Flamboyant Hill

A Skeletal Wreck in the USVI with Iconic Stone Walls and Midcentury Lines Is Artfully Coaxed Back to Life

Up a canopied driveway lined by stone walls, tucked into a hill such that neighbors across the street don’t know it’s there, the ruin’s attraction was immediate. The "house" was a wreck but had distinctive features and a fascinating pedigree which intersected St. Croix’s contemporary history. The real estate listing headlined that it had been built by German photographer Fritz Henle whose on-island celebrity lives on through his creative offspring. After some research in the archives of the Government House and speaking with Fritz’s children, I discovered that Fritz had little to do with the house. It was his ex-wife, Atti van Berg, arriving on St. Croix in 1952 as a single mother of four-year-old Jan Henle, who contracted an Argentinian architect to build the original core dwelling. In 1956, Atti, a dancer from Holland, married José Bermúdez Heyliger, a landscape architect and manager of Annaly Farms. I like to believe that Bermudez’s landscaping touch is evident in the loosely curated, terraced, mini tropical forest sloping away from the house, punctuated by palm, mahogany, flamboyant and turpentine trees.

I approach resurrections by trying to reveal the soul of a structure, and only with reluctance alter anything substantial. I scoured old real estate listings and interviewed previous owners and visitors to understand its prior incarnations. Few clues remained. Over the years, the house had grown and morphed leaving a disappointing jumble. I ascertained that it was after Atti that the stunning, unique coral rock stone walls extended the living spaces and framed enormous windows looking into the floral oasis. These, and the terrazzo floors throughout, had drawn me to take on this challenging, distant project as a single woman living in the Hudson Valley of New York—in an echoing tribute to Atti.

I have renovated a half dozen homes, but not one like this. This ramshackle skeleton required everything— roof, windows, doors, walls, plumbing, electrical—and immediately, if I wanted to get out ahead of the next hurricane season. The first order of business was to close the roof and to simultaneously repair, clean and paint the cisterns. Windows and doors needed to be in before June so a hurricane wouldn’t blow off the new roof. With a roof in place, the painstaking and expensive electrical work could begin, which required digging trenches in solid concrete walls. Operating as general contractor and architect, I quickly boned up on what it means to build a hurricane-proof, water-catching roof. Ducts and conduits transport the precious water which arrives during the rainy season into multiple cisterns below the house. The plentiful and enormous openings which drew me to the home were so large and numerous (and perplexing) that there was not enough wall to accommodate hurricane shutters. The Dade County hurricane-approved windows would double as security.

I had assumed that hurricanes Maria and Irma were responsible for the house’s condition but later discovered that the sellers had stripped the house of years and layers of tile and “bandages.” Piles of broken mosaic and block surrounded the house and yard, which I personally hauled out in 5-gallon plastic buckets. (Carrying roughly 50 pounds, I clocked 6 miles that day!) I sorted and used non-sharp concrete rubble to fill potholes in the driveway. The good news? Less demolition to do. I tried to discern and incorporate their intentions from drawings scrawled on the walls, such as TOILET HERE?

The three round arches in the driveway were squared and fenced. This wall became the main entry, separating the driveway from the inner courtyard physically and visually. I jackhammered five inches of concrete and standard issue glazed white tile out of that patio— which had at one time been enclosed—to reveal additional terrazzo floors. The main house and the guest wing are now joined by this terrazzo patio, where there is an outdoor bar and multiple entertaining and living spaces. A large, sculptural Flamboyant tree with dramatic orange blossoms shades a brick patio a few steps below. The deep pool on the other end of the house, a breeding ground for mosquitos and tadpoles when I arrived, required significant investment to bring up to code, worth every penny. With a big sky, it offers another outdoor “room” to take morning coffee, catch sunsets, and view the hemisphere of a rainbow after a brief afternoon shower. A fence, thoughtfully scaled and joining the existing walls, steps around the entire house, giving the property dimension and security, and keeping my fast English Setter, Dexter, nearby.

Minimalism and sustainability are in the result and in the journey. I reuse and repurpose. I assess movement and privacy, how the sun works its way around the house, and in this case, how to celebrate and harness the hilltop breeze to minimize Caribbean heat and sporing mold. We plastered and painted the outside of the house in inviting tropical colors—salmon and turmeric with a neutral taupe trim. In contrast, the inside of the main house was left "natural" and raw. I did what was necessary for structural integrity—such as chipping out and sealing rusted rebar—but left rough, unfinished edges and graffiti, imprints of old bathroom tile, some tinted mustard, or green, or grey. Each wall has its own palette and is—in my estimation— a work of art, like the side of an old barge that scraped through a tight canal. Many walls don’t reach the ceiling, a feature found in old plantation houses to allow circulation among rooms. I located elusive but island-vernacular glass block and used it to create a tub and a shower stall and to fill several superfluous openings, thus allowing natural light to reach interior rooms, maintaining the open feel as when I first saw the house.

I also subscribe to flexibility, rather than, say, dedicated spaces or built-ins. Living spaces have multiple rather than single use. With daybeds throughout, and flexible partitions, there is always ample room for guests. And I personally like to move around the place through the day depending on light and shade and mood and what I’m doing.

Arriving a year after Hurricanes Maria and Irma, I competed for scarce and expensive tradesmen and materials, as FEMA pumped millions into the island’s repair. I met with dozens of plumbers, electricians, masons, painters, gardeners, landscapers, pest and pool guys. We agreed on prices and scope of work and then they didn’t show. Over time, I assembled a team of mostly locals—local to the Caribbean, that is. They came from Antigua, Dominica, Trinidad, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Nevis and St. Croix. I valued them highly and they became dear to me as I ferried them back and forth in my pickup truck into town. They had sick or disabled spouses, or lived alone as migrant day laborers. A couple have stands at the local farmer’s market. One took a half day on Friday to collect wares from “the bush.” They shared local foods and plant knowledge, along with specific trade expertise. I often worked alongside them.

For an island notorious for expensive electricity and frequent outages, my electric bill is under $100 a month. I have an ENERGY STAR refrigerator and a highly efficient 90-pound variable pool pump I dragged down in a suitcase. With large, well-placed windows and a gentle zephyr which wafts through the house, especially at night, there is no need for AC. Ceiling and other fans suffice in a pinch. In the end, the 80” X 120” windows in the main living spaces have only a large screen—no glass. I couldn’t imagine closing out the natural world beyond. We made hurricane doors out of repurposed corrugated metal roofing which I install when I leave for the summer. Sixteen exterior and interior mahogany louvre doors, which I found in the back aisle of Home Depot, integrate the spaces visually.

I shipped a container of furniture from New York, including sofa mattresses and daybeds designed by Ward Bennett ; ten BBDW Ladder and Square Guest Chairs which had been left behind as seconds in a warehouse, half-finished in a carpentry shop which I completed with a friend; a five-foot square dining room table; vintage chests; a collection of antique pastel-hued porcelain pitchers; Marimekko butterfly chairs; five tall St. Claire midcentury wooden and brass table lamps; kitchen IKEA cabinetry; outdoor furniture; and my own art. I supplement from estate sales on island where classic Danish midcentury pieces can be found if the sellers have lived on St. Croix for decades: mahogany live edge coffee tables, a classic Dansk ice bucket, and a unique patio set. Blue green fishing nets collected (to alleviate its impact on wildlife) on St. Croix beaches decorate the living room stone wall. Leftover concrete blocks are reissued as toilet paper holders, in keeping with the vocabulary of the rustic yet renovated home. Concrete cores removed from the side of the pool when it was re-plumbed are used as doorstops.

This hidden gem celebrates flexible living spaces, seamless indoor-outdoor flow, and the artifactual grit of raw concrete walls—while designed for water catchment, hurricanes, and security. From a roofless, wall-less, windowless, doorless ramshackle ruin perched on a hill, an open, breezy midcentury modern retreat was born.