Serendipitous and Sustainable: A Virgin Islands Home Saves Water
A Virgin Islands home proves the advantages of proper siting and water conservation—and it was a lot of fun to build.
January/February 2010
By Kim Wallace
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Sited to fit the hilly landscape, the Burgamy home is nearly invisible from the nearby national park and ocean.
Photo By Daniel Nadelbach
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When Michael Burgamy and Char Sloan Burgamy thought they had found the perfect beachfront cottage on the island of St. John in a Wall Street Journal ad, they immediately called their real estate agent. Bad news: The beachfront land for sale, located within the boundaries of a national park, didn’t include a cottage.
Disappointed but still intrigued, the Burgamys made a trip to the U.S. Virgin Islands to check out other available homes—and the land. As soon as they saw its stunning ocean views and vast foliage, they knew it was the perfect site for their dream home.
“That’s how it started,” Char says, “with a little bit of serendipity.”
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Meeting nature’s demands
The Burgamys chose local architect Doug White, a Virgin Islands resident for more than 30 years, to design their home. Intimate with the area’s terrain, White knows the importance of proper siting to take advantage of solar energy and natural ventilation.
Building in a tropical climate demands a solid marriage of free-flow design and hardy construction. The hot, sometimes stormy island weather requires hurricane-resistant homes that invite in cooling trade winds. For the Burgamy residence, White also had to fit a house large enough for visiting adult children (and spouses and grandkids) into a hilly, beachfront site.
White crafted a U-shaped concrete house with open rooms and large windows, set upon a series of terraces that step down to the beach. The open-air design cools the house naturally, and the local concrete, sourced from about 50 miles away in Puerto Rico, provides a strong, hurricane-resistant structure. White incorporated salvaged stones into the retaining walls and a series of planters up the hill. Native plants surround the house and shade it from the sun.
“When you’re in the house or on the veranda, you feel very close and connected to the beach, yet have sufficient distance and elevation to be protected from occasional storm surges,” Char says.
Storm surges often cut off St. John’s electrical grid from its substation on St. Thomas, causing frequent power outages. A 1.5-kilowatt solar system supplies backup and also powers the home’s Energy Star appliances and sophisticated sound and lighting systems.
Conserving water
Water conservation is serious business in the Caribbean, where the only natural water source is rain. For Michael and Char, who have always been water-conscious anyway, designing for water conservation just made sense.
All rainwater that falls on the driveway, pool deck and galleries goes into a graywater cistern; rainwater from the roof falls into a freshwater cistern. A Metlund D’MAND tankless hot water system also helps reduce the Burgamys’ water use, and they love the instant gratification of the on-demand system. “When you turn on the water, you don’t let it run and wait for it to get hot,” Michael says.
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