Island Stones - St John USVI
Submitted: June 12, 2012
Stayed: May 2012
The villa was great and certainly lived up to the very high expectations created by the photos on the website. Catherineberg is my favorite area on St John and I think we've rented most of the available properties there over the last 17 or so years. However, your pool is hands down the best we've come across: the views, the layout with the built in bar stools and tables, the infinity design, the mural - can't think how you could build a better pool. And the house is magnificent - took a while for the oohs and ahhs to settle down. Our group of 5 couples thoroughly enjoyed the outdoor areas (to the extent that the game room was hardly used). In short, a wonderful time was had by all!
Owner's Response: Vicky and I are happy to know the ten of you had such a good time. The pool is an interesting story. I won't go into full detail here but I can't help but share some of it. There was a lot of back and forth with the drawing and coral and dolphins and sea turtles and fish before we liked it. It was all drawn out on a very long mat with all the individual glass tiles numbered. The entire piece was about 36 feet long and 5 1/2 feet tall plus another 8 foot long area. Sections of mat with tiny glass tiles glued to it were cut into 4' sections. They required 3 people to hold up and place into position and needless to say it was a long and tedious process. The stone walls in the pool were done by fabulous stone masons that I have known for many years. Joseph and Joseph are from down island and specialize in work that is is as close to the old sugar ruins of Catherineberg as I have seen anywhere. Everything from coral to conch shells, antique hand made brick, and blue bitch stone was used. Aside from all that though, my next two favorite parts is having a bottle of red wine on the cocktail table in the pool (while someone is grilling brats on the nearby Alfresco Grill) and looking out over the infinity edge to Cinnamon Bay and Jost Van Dyke. Vicky would say her favorite is laying on the 6" deep sun shelf of smooth dark warm river pebbles and getting the exposed half sun tanned.
Island Stones has an interesting layout and lots of outdoor spaces that I think you all enjoyed. It is just so spread out and interesting that while there are several places to congregate there are also plenty of private areas so larger groups do not feel crowded. Thanks for coming Ed and hope to see you back some time.
John and Vicky
Helpful votes: 3/3
Did you find this review helpful?
Yes
No