Hey Marybeth,
I'm the OCD one with the Google Earth project. They've screwed me up pretty good with their recent update of St John. All my pushpins marking my villas have moved up about an inch and over to the right.
I guess I can still figure out where they should be, but moving them all one by one could take forever.
There's also a ton of cloud cover over the whole South Shore area so I can't see many villas anymore.
Now that I've gotten my complaining out of the way, I'll try to explain what I know (or think I know) about the Gifft Hill villas. I'm open to suggestion or correction, and would love additional information.
If you leave Cruz Bay on Centerline Road, you take a right onto Gifft Hill road. As you travel this road and pass the school on your left, you will soon come to the road/driveway on your right that other people have mentioned.
Coconuts is on the corner, the first house on the left as you turn in. You can't miss it. Next to it is
Plumeria. Next, there's a driveway on the left which is shared by
Palm Villa, on the left and
Cloud9, on the right. Past this driveway, also on the left, is
Seawatch. There are a couple of other houses on this road on the right, and past Seawatch, with no villa name signs. I could not tell if they were private or rental.
Continuing on Gifft Hill Road, on the right you will see the entrance to Virgin Grand Estates. It is a very fancy stone and brick entry with a sign.
There are lots of villas in VGE but the top tier of villas would be below the villas on GHR. I think this may include
C'est Bleu, Vista Caribe, La Bella Vita and
Rapture which is below Capiz.
Villas Del Sol and Hibiscus are here also, and are now part of the Westin villa fractional ownership.
Just past the VGE entrance, on your right you will see
Cielovista, then
Villa Capiz, then
Hummingbird Hill. These lie above the top tier of VGE villas. Cielovista is very close to the road. You turn off of the road directly into the parking area. Capiz and Hummingbird have driveways and lots of vegetation, so they're not exposed to the road.
There are several other villas with a Gifft Hill location that I have not yet pinpointed.
Paloma Blanca, Gifft Hill Villa (owned by Donald Schnell),
A Son Tour on the market for $1.2,
Sunset Pointe,
Bamboo Villa (off the rental market now, I think), and a new 5BR one that looks really nice called
Skyway.
Both
Skyway and
Windchime are up on the left side of Gifft Hill Road at a higher elevation. Windchime's view is actually toward Reef Bay. Skyway looks to have an amazing panoramic view from its hilltop location.
Past Hummingbird Hill, as Gifft Hill Road descends toward the water, the houses accessed to the left have views looking over Rendezvous Bay.
Vistaero, House with a View, Garden Villa, Altamira, St John's Passion, Blue Heaven Rendezvous, Bente's Fancy Island Villa and others are all in the same general area and some are listed as or considered Gifft Hill because of Gifft Hill Road.
There are several small roads and driveways off of GHR and I've only explored a few. The ones near the school on the right side of the road (near the Fork and the dumpsters, etc.)are very hilly, bumpy, narrow, steep and you never know when you're going to have to back out because you've ended up in someone's driveway.
I think very few of the houses are rentals.
I'm sure you'll be doing some recon while you're there, so any help filling in the blanks would be appreciated. Definitely explore VGE. I haven't actually seen that top row of villas to map them, but I have a site map of VGE with the lot numbers (addresses) marked. Any names you can put with a lot number would be great. I've mostly gotten the lower road (Cocotier, etc.).
Now that I'm looking at what I've written, I think I probably shoud have published it in installments.
Can I convert this so that I get credit for more than one post?
I may not post often, but I sure post long.
I hope this helps.
