USVI-On-Line

As an informational follow-up to previous threads...Maho Bay Camps...

The following is the total text from a www.maho.org newletter received by email today. Unable to find it on the website I submit here:


Help TPL Save Maho Bay Camps

Big news this week from the Trust for Public Land (TPL) in response to the many offers of help received from friends of Maho Bay Camps. TPL has launched an effort to purchase the Maho Bay Camps land for permanent protection as a natural preserve.

Here is a brief recap of our last newsletter:
Two years from now, July 31, 2011, Maho Bay Camps will close. This will allow us time to dismantle and evacuate the property by January 2012, the end of our 37-year lease term. The land is currently on the market and TPL has been in negotiations with the landowners for possible purchase. If the land acquisition is successful, TPL will enable the eco-resort to continue as it has for so many years.

As a nonprofit land conservation organization, the Trust for Public Land relies on donations to protect land for others to enjoy. At this point we believe that TPL is the only viable purchaser. However it will require expensive appraisals and negotiations to finalize a purchase. This transaction funding is difficult for TPL to raise, especially in these hard times. Every contribution to assist TPL's purchase of the land is essential.

We encourage you to explore the Trust for Public Land's Web site to find out about the commendable work this organization is doing all over the country. A description from their site reads, The Trust for Public Land depends on the support and generosity of individuals, foundations, and businesses to achieve our land-for-people mission. TPL is the only national, nonprofit land conservation organization dedicated specifically to protecting land for public use.

All individuals interested in making a tax-deductible donation in support of the Maho Bay Camps land acquisition efforts by the Trust for Public Land should email john.garrison@tpl.org or refer to TPL's Web site at www.tpl.org. To make a contribution, please mail your check, payable to The Trust for Public Land, to the following address. Please indicate on the check that it is for the Maho Bay Camps Campaign.

The Trust for Public Land
Maho Bay Camps Campaign
116 New Montgomery St., 4th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105

P.S. This new fund established by Trust for Public Land is not to be confused with the recent 400-acre purchase of Estate Maho Bay. That acquisition made by TPL was for a large piece of land bordering Maho Bay Camps and, happily, was finalized last year after five years in the making.

Well for 28.8 million it can be all your's.
I kinda have mixed feelings about this. I would like to see it remain as privately
owned land, as the national parks already has over half of the Island. On the other hand I'ld really hate to see it turned into another Peter Bay.

Kirk, I agree with you to an extent. As an infrequent visitor to St John I can voice little except my personal opinion.

I am sure that many native families and a few long standing visitors would like to see St John stay as it is or even be as it was twenty years ago. Today the island has been developed and is still being developed with many luxury villas, condos, and estates...because there has been a demand for all they offer and the money has been available to build, furnish and equip, and maintain them. Happily, the Virgin Islands National Park exists as well. The lost balance is in the lands lost by the native families who hope to continue their family history here but have trouble competing with outsiders.

My guess is that today it is not too likely that anyone is going to buy this parcel and not develop it into a potential income property or that any native born family can buy it for that price simply for use as a private home acreage.

To me, a continuation of the park lands, whether as a campground or not, makes better sense. Personally, I am not a camper...I like comforts and enjoy as much luxury as I can afford, all the while looking for the unblemished views and natural areas to enjoy as well. It seems to me that St John has enough luxury and needs for this space to remain a natural spot, and that the Trust for Public Land is the best route to accomplishing that goal.

Hmmm. It seems to have disappeared off of 3 of the local realestate websites. I know it was still listed for sale yesterday.

I'm not sure we were that fast with the donations, Kirk. Let's just hope it disappeared because of TPL and not the Wyndham timeshare people or Sandals resorts.

kirk wrote:Hmmm. It seems to have disappeared off of 3 of the local realestate websites. I know it was still listed for sale yesterday.

Sorry Kirk, both Islandia and Holiday Homes are still carrying the listing today, still $28.8 million...

www.estatemahobay.com

I have no involvement with any of the above...

Islandia didn't take it off their site, they put a big banner and link to it off their home page.

Have any of you looked at that Web site? This is my worst nightmare coming true. I know some of you have mixed feelings about Maho being developed, but I have none. I'm not against progress, but I'm much more for responsible development and replacing the world's first eco-resort with a Sandals is not responsible to me.

Lulu76 wrote:Islandia didn't take it off their site, they put a big banner and link to it off their home page.

Have any of you looked at that Web site? This is my worst nightmare coming true. I know some of you have mixed feelings about Maho being developed, but I have none. I'm not against progress, but I'm much more for responsible development and replacing the world's first eco-resort with a Sandals is not responsible to me.

zoiks....mixed feelings...I have none either I don;t want this sold to some developer period. lok at what they are doing to ditleff and the east end has some big thing going on right? and the moravian church has some big plans for their property in Coral bay---that's been slow in coming but still......

Other land currently for sale on St John and proposed development in several areas are one matter; change is sure to come to more of the island eventually. Villas, condos and even more luxury estates are already on the drawing boards...the market is there to meet the consumer's desires.

That this particular parcel becomes part of the Virgin Islands National Park just makes sense, much because of the location and current use. It is the $28.8 million that is dificult to grasp.

Forum readers, please look into the Trust for Public Land and voice your feelings...

www.tpl.org

...a link to other comments and notice of this subject:

http://barnako.typepad.com/news_of_st_j ... o-bay.html


In reading this week's trip reports, how many times have I seen "favorite is Maho, love Maho"???

One proposed possibility for the Maho Bay Camps parcel is for 25 homes or another is for a luxury resort. How would either impact the Maho Bay that we all seem to favor???

Here's a little history of that area.

Ethel McCully
Ethel McCully, author and St. John personality, lived at Little Maho Bay before it became the campground. In those days the North Shore Road was only a rough dirt track. And the goat trail was the only access to the property from the road.

Island rumor has it that Ethel McCully discovered Little Maho Bay while traveling to the British Virgin Islands on a small Tortola sloop. Obviously impressed by the beauty, she jumped off the sailboat and swam ashore.

Ms. McCully later bought the property and built a house on the bluff above the bay. She did this with the help of six donkeys and two laborers. Ethel wrote a book about the experience, which was to be titled, I Did It With Donkeys. Her publisher said "no" to this idea, and the book was published in 1954 with the title, Grandma Raised the Roof. The roof to her guesthouse, which she called Island Fancy, was actually raised in 1953.

Before her literary success with Grandma Raised the Roof, Ethel McCully was a mystery writer and an ambulance driver during World War One.

In the 1960s, Ms. McCully, along with other many other notable and prominent St. Johnians took a strong against an attempt by the National Park to obtain privately held St. John land by condemnation.

In the early 1950s, Laurance Rockefeller founded the Jackson Hole Preserve Corporation. He purchased over 6000 acres of land on St. John and subsequently donated most of this land (with the notable exception of Caneel Bay) to the federal government for the creation of a National Park.

In 1957, shortly after the Park came into being, the Park proposed a plan to condemn all the land in St. John and to resettle the inhabitants on property on the south shore referred to as "Green Valley". Cruz Bay was to be made into an exhibition featuring a typical native-style village with costumed employees demonstrating old-time arts and crafts. The Battery in Cruz Bay was to become the National Park headquarters.

The Park dropped the idea after meeting a fierce storm of resistance from St. Johnians. But in 1962 the Department of the Interior and the National Park made another, more serious, attempt to acquire the privately owned land within the Park by condemnation.

One of these prominent St. Johnians was VI Senator Theovald Moorehead, known affectionately as Mooie. He was circulating a petition to be sent to President Kennedy. It read: "For generations, since the abolition of slavery under the Danes, these lands have been owned and lived on by these families and it is our heritage..."

Ethel McCully along with the late Virgin Islands Senator Theovald Moorehead (better known as Mooie) went to Washington in an effort to persuade Congress to defeat the proposed amendment.

Mooie talked to congressmen and senators and placed an ad in the Washington Post. Ms. McCully spoke at a meeting of the United States House of Representatives where she strongly expressed her ideas about the condemnation amendment.

On September 9, 1962 the New York Times published the following article written by J. Anthony Lukas pertaining to Ms. McCully's speech under the headline "A Grandmother Fights Congress, Will 'Raise Hell' in Threat to Her Virgin Island Haven:"

I find real property condemnation and seizures as well as resettlement issues appalling...yet many of us have benefited from such events.


The history of Little Maho Bay is very interesting. Mrs. McCully's story is on-going...from previous forum posts this year...

Kathleen Brueckner
Joined: 18 May 2009
Posts: 2
Location: Rhode Island
PostPosted: Mon May 18, 2009 9:43 am Post subject: Grandma Raised the Roof

Hello, I am one of the granddaughters of Ethel Walbridge McCully, author of "Grandma Raised the Roof." First, I must caution anyone: do not post any pictures from the book online. The entire book, including the photographs, is copyrighted. I currently hold the copyright and I am re-writing the book. My grandmother's time-line is a bit confusing so I am doing an edit. I am also adding a prologue and an epilogue. There are a couple of publishers interested.
_________________
Ethel Walbridge McCully's granddaughter

I am very happy to keep you informed. My plan is to have my editing and prologue and epilogue done by August 31. I also hope to visit St. John, perhaps with my cousin Alline Thurlow who lived there until 1999. We would like to interview people who remember Ethel and collect any reminiscences and stories about her.
My husband and I took our four children to the island in 2005. We stayed at Maho Campground and visited Island Fancy. We realized at that time that there is an ongoing interest in my grandmother's story. It is a marvelous story, but on re-reading her book, I and my cousins felt that a major edit was needed. The story certainly does encourage people to work to achieve their dreams, no matter their age.

Thank you for your interest in the book.
Trinki Brueckner



Today's question for this property, now on the market, is who has $28.8 million for buying it and what will then become of the land...private estate, resort, a neighborhood type development of homes, national park, or other?

Kirk, Lulu76 and loria, I appreciate your interest and comments here...I am only hoping that others will give it some thought too.

I absolutely think that any development on the Maho Bay Camp site will affect my favorite beach. I understand that there are plenty of new projects being built on St John, and frankly, I'm not sure how I feel about those either. I know I said a few days ago that I just ignore all the other villas around me, but when does that become too difficult.

Last night, a friend and I were discussing Maho being for sale, and I told her to go look at that promotional Web site. All three of the options for the land are unpleasant to me, so the only logical solution is for it to be absorbed into the National Park and for the camp to continue.

My main rationale for it is a) I will be very grumpy something happens that destroys the integrity of Maho or prevents me from having access to it. In all reality, I would probably vacation elsewhere if that happened. And B) I don't really want the kind of people who would hang out at a Sandals-type resort on St. John. Right now it's a place where I go to "fancy" restaurants wearing tank tops and skorts. I don't want anything to change that either.

P.S. I don't really think that it is the government's style to condemn land and take it for parks these days. And what happened to the Virgin Islanders is not unlike what happened to the East Tennessee mountain folks when they seized their property for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

I don't think that is the solution, but I just fear what will happen if TPL doesn't raise the money. And in the case of Estate Maho Bay, TPL got a reduced rate that made that purchase appealing. It seems like these landowners are unwilling to work with them -- at least until they make sure no one is willing to pay the $28.8 million, which face it, is not a lot of money for a resort developer.

Can we all pinky swear right now that if they do build a mega resort out there that none of us will patronize it? It just seems like everything goes to hell when those big resorts come in.

I just don't see a mega resort being built there in these economic times. People just aren't buying or investing in these types of properties right now. Of coarse this may change by 2012. Pond Bay has cut back it's building. Sirenusa is mostly unfinished shells and Grande Bay is shelling it's last building.
AS to the price of 28M, well it works out to just over 2.2M per acre. which is in the ballpark for northshore land.
I guess in the scheme of things TPL is better then a resort,condos or 12 to 24 homesites.