For as long as we can remember (20+ years), Great Expectations had 2 forms of shade outside the Great Room around the pool areas: a sun setter motorized shade over the main building entrance (and over the current teak tables & chairs) and nylon roped sunshades connected over the small pools and the sunset patio area.
The “old” Great Expectations with old big pool and patio tile (pre-pandemic)
Shade is a friend
Both have their obvious plusses of providing an escape from the mid day sun and the rare daytime or evening rain showers. We inherited the sun setter shade and even replaced the roll of shade material last year. The sunshades are inexpensive, and we’ve replaced more than one.
However, they are held up by ropes, which are only as good as the highest point you can anchor them to. Since the anchors are on the buildings’ facia, they sagged to below 8ft blocking a great western view. The sunshades are also not really water-proof - they protect from the rain, but then collect water and stream water through. Finally, they have to be pulled down every year for storm season and last-minute when we have an unexpected high-wind event outside of storm season,
Upgrades with a Long-Term Vision
In the fall of 2021, we resurfaced the entire big pool and patio area with beautiful (and cool to the feet) coral tile. While that was happening, we were planning some longer-term enhancements including a more permanent build for shade, hot tub modifications, and expansion of the Great Room living experience. The post-patio rebuild plan was dubbed PERGOLA1.
PERGOLA1 mockup by Steve Butcher
Building a Pergola on St. John
After closing down for September and October 2022 and with structural loads confirmed, we went about gathering the thousands of pounds of treated lumber, cement blocks, rebar, Simpson Strong-Tie hardware, and 2 buckets of 2 sizes of timberlock screws.
Designing for the Location
When you plan a pergola on a remote Caribbean island, 2 big things come to mind: overbuild and material availability. The plan was to use 3x8 pressure-treated lumber from Coral Bay. Alas, they only have 3x10’s in 20 foot lengths.
So, we made plans to rip the almost 2” wide purlins off, leaving 3'“ x 8” for the joists with zero waste! Did we mention how heavy 3” x 10” x 20” pressure treated wet boards are? The lumber was so heavy and long, they weren’t going to be hauled across island on Lefty the mini truck. So we paid for delivery and carpenter Joey G got started on the footings for the back wall. A few weeks, a decent amount of rain, and a lot of sweat later - the final product took shape while we were off island on vacation.
Putting the finishing touches
It just so happened that our favorite professional painter, Mikey Nice, was available to pay a visit from Vermont to put the professional shine on PERGOLA1 and make it ready for guests to enjoy.
After a solid week of priming, sanding, caulking, and painting, the final PERGOLA1 was finished and ready to enjoy by the end of 2022!
Why is it called PERGOLA1?
If St. John rental villa ownership teaches you anything, it’s look 5 steps ahead, expect potholes, and build on successes. This patio feature was a $10,000 investment AND research project. When time and funds allow, the next step will be to expand on this concept:
replace the 2 small pools with one in-ground hot tub
redo the rest of the main pool patio with coral tile and brick accent
build a very similar PERGOLA2 connected off the western entrance to the Great Room replacing the sunsetter shade and expanding the view immensely.
Until then our guests enjoy!