CADES BAY - Renovation Property

Spring - Building / Construction

The Williams come from the county town of Ipswich in the East of England. Ipswich has a thriving Caribbean community made up of a diverse population from various West Indian islands. Christine is a native ‘Ipswichian’ and her husband Eddie was born in Antigua, but once their children had flown the coop the decision was made to live out their better years in the sunshine. Eddie & Christine have been spending holidays in Antigua since their children were small. “We used to stay in Jolly Harbour, which was fantastic for family holidays – it gave us everything we needed. But it wasn’t somewhere we wanted to live full-time”.

Eddie was brought up in Christian Hill, a small rural community near Antigua’s South East coast, so it had been Eddie’s vision that he would come home to live somewhere near his childhood village. Eddie said, excitedly, “Moira Stuart (Britain’s first Black newsreader) has ancestors from that area too!” Moira found out more about her Antiguan roots when she appeared in the BBC television genealogy
documentary series “Who do you think you are?”. Originally the couple started looking for land in Falmouth and English Harbour areas, but each time they found something they wanted the deal fell through and nothing worked out.

Eddie & Christine bought the house at Cades Bay at the end of 2005 after seeing it advertised in the first edition of Caribbean Homes & Lifestyle magazine. It was Eddie’s niece who drew his attention to the house in the magazine. Eddie said, “We came in from the UK on the Wednesday and my niece Michelle set up the appointment to see the house on the Friday. That weekend we spent time driving
around the area, hanging out and getting a feel for the place”. Within a week they had put in a firm offer and sales procedures were put into action. Christine says, “As soon as we stepped into the house we could visualise the completed home. It had loads of potential, we could see exactly what was needed to finish the house and convert it into our home”.

The original house was built around 2002. It consisted of a one storey building, with 2 double bedrooms, a main bathroom and an ensuite bathroom adjacent to the main bedroom. An open-planned living and dining room area lead through to the compact kitchen. The original structure was built with a flat uncompleted roof, as the plan was to build a first floor creating two apartments. All the electrical and plumbing fixtures were carried up through to the existing roof in order to continue the build above. Once they had renovated the original ground floor of the house and landscaped the garden their thoughts turned to the unfinished first floor of the house. Christine gave me a little background on how the first floor renovation got started; “As the roof wasn’t properly finished water had started to seep down the walls of the house and we knew that we couldn’t leave it any longer. We got various quotes for the work, but they were well beyond our budget. We thought as the water and electrical infrastructure were already in place, it would bring the costs down, but it didn’t. I was just about to give up on the first floor and put a roof on when Black & White Construction came to look at the job. Glen the owner gave us a quote that was workable. He said that as long as we were happy to use some of the materials he already had on island, the cost could be kept down, as he wouldn’t have to ship anything onto island. This worked for us, and construction started in March (2008)”.

The Black & White construction team moved in and began the first floor. “Once the roof went on it made such a difference to the look of the house”, Christine reflected. “The workmen were reliable and the build went smoothly, but once the main construction was out of the way we had to learn to do a lot of things ourselves to get the final touches done. Eddie is a handy man and can paint and decorate,
but he had to stretch his skills on this project and learn to do a lot more things”. As I stood with Eddie & Christine admiring the beautiful sea view from the verandah of their completed first floor apartment they were beaming with excitement at finishing their first project. They are already discussing what they want to achieve next time around. They are just about to move into the first floor apartment and rent out the ground floor as a holiday rental apartment.

This is a great accomplishment for Eddie & Christine and a motivating story for Caribbean Homes & Lifestyle, following the success and transformation of one of the first properties marketed through the magazine.

Photo 1  View of Cades Bay from the rear for Eddie & Christine’s Property.
Photo 2  Original photograph used to market the Cades Bay property in the 1st Issue of CH&L magazine.
Photo 3  View of the completed house from
the front garden.