As a healthcare professional living and working in California, I never imagined that I would one day be the owner of a vacation home in the Caribbean. Ana Maria, however, was the daughter of a sugar cane worker, born on a farm in rural Vega Baja, Puerto Rico. The family had left, when she was little, for better economic opportunities in the States.
In the late 1990's, the property was sold by her father and some of his remaining sisters to a developer, who came in with plans for a paved road and water and electrical connections. We visited the farm for our 25th wedding anniversary in 2003. After finding a piece of concrete that had once been the foundation of Ana's family home, we decided that we wanted to buy back a piece of the family's roots.
The paperwork wasn't ready until 2006, when we officially purchased a two-thirds acre lot, located up on a hill where one of Ana's uncles used to live. The view of the surrounding hills was beautiful, and there was a cool breeze flowing though that area. We decided that someday we would try to build a vacation home there for ourselves, family, and friends to enjoy.
We started saving up our money, and, finally at the end of 2012, we felt we had enough to get started. Ana had a cousin in Puerto Rico, a retired electrician. who recommended David Jimenez, a contractor, whom he had worked with in the past. David was just starting up a business of doing predesigned, "green" homes, which had a special type of insulation providing both noise and temperature control inside the house.
We chose one of the models, which offered a living room, dining room, kitchen plus three bedrooms and two baths, totaling about 1300 square feet, with a 400 square foot attached garage. I reasoned that I didn't really need all of that garage space, so we worked with David to change it into living space, including a fourth bedroom, large pantry, gym room, office space, and laundry room. Since that area would have the floor and roof as part of the original deal, anyway, the cost of doing that area would be less than the cost of new construction.
Since we were back in California, David searched for financing for the project for us in Puerto Rico, and the Cooperativa of Isabela (Coop) agreed to provide us with both the construction loan and mortgage. With this approved, we signed a letter of intent to build the house with David in the Spring of 2013. Initially, a lot of the paperwork was completed via fax and telephone conversations. We flew down to the Island in June, 2013 to sign a bunch of documents. Then David, and Arturo, the civil engineer, went out to obtain all of the municipal building permits. The actual construction started in early August, 2013
Since we were back in California, David would send us internet pictures showing the progress of the labor. He also chronicled the building project on the Facebook page of his company. A lot of people were sending in "likes" and comments. There were some initial challenges because the property was hilly and uneven, so they had to do some additional excavation and landfill to prepare the building site.
We headed back to Puerto Rico around the end of October, and the concrete panels for the walls were going up. Work had been delayed by a series of rain storms, which had made it difficult for the trucks carrying supplies and equipment to gain access to the construction site. We used that trip to choose some doors and custom windows (for the front of the house) at a factory warehouse, as well as some of the bathroom fixtures.
Ana decided to travel back to Puerto Rico in December with her nephew Pete, who could help her with some of the tasks. They chose the floor tiles shortly after arriving, as well as the colors for the cabinets. I arrived just in time for New Year's, 2014. By that time, all of the walls and floors were in, and they were adding some of the final layers of concrete and masonry. They still had all of the interior, fixtures, and painting left to do.
Ana went there a week ahead of me in April, and they had just finished up the construction. The water and electricity was connected, and all of the furniture was delivered. So, when I arrived, I was able to stay in the house and enjoy it for the first time. A dream that had literally taken ten years from start to finish had been completed.
The house turned out to be more beautiful than I imagined. The entire property and scenery were so peaceful. I felt that all of the conveniences I had in California had been reduplicated there. Also, the house had a flat concrete roof, the entire square footage of the home, which had a beautiful view of the hills in the front, and the mountains and neighboring towns in the back. We also entered into agreement with Ana's cousin, Luis,who lived just down the road, to be our full time caretaker and maintain all of the property and do home repairs.
In looking back, we decided to analyze whether or not we had gotten a good deal. We enjoyed watching International House Hunters and had seen many people purchase homes in other countries. We enjoyed the fact, aside from the sentimental value of it being Ana's birthplace, that Puerto Rico was a Commonwealth of the United States. So, essentially, all of the laws were the same with similar standards for building codes.
Also because of the lower cost of labor there than on the Mainland, our total construction costs amounted to much less than we could have gotten in most parts of the US, especially California. We had definitely achieved our ultimate goal of preserving Ana's family heritage and owning a home on "La Isla del Encanto" --or Island of Enchantment--as Puerto Rico is known. With this in mind, the main hallway in the house features a family tree of Ana's ancestors and many pictures, some of them original, of what life was like in rural Puerto Rico in the early and middle part of the 20th century.
While the house was great in it's original form, we began several add-on projects, including a rear open patio, a covered terrace off the living room, a beautiful swimming pool, and a basketball court, solar panels, and a third full bathroom. We decided to purchase the lot next to us, expanding our land total to 1.3 acres, and planted fruits and vegetables, coffee trees, and some banana palms. We also began constructing a multipurpose room off the master bedroom that could be used as additional "gathering space," but, also provided room for more people to sleep. That put us at over 2000 square feet.
On September 20, 2017, the Island of Puerto Rico was devastated by a direct hit from Hurricane Maria. Winds reached 150 miles per hour, and 20 inches of rain fell in one day. Fortunately, Luis had boarded up the house prior to the storm. Although there was a lot of clean-up of debris required on the property, and the garden needed to be replanted, the house, which had come to be known as "Casa Lomita Verde-- or the house on the green hill sustained essentially no significant damage.
It took almost a week to get through to the Island by telephone, but conditions there were too rough for visitors to even think of coming to help. We managed to fly there for a week at the end of November, using a generator for lighting at night, as the electricity was out (and did not return until March,2018). We joined up with the community organization, Almirante Da La Mano, and helped to visit home and bed confined patients who had essentially no access to medical care.
Our experiences there helped us to form lasting bonds with many people, and we made many new friends. We promised to keep closely in touch with everyone, and to help with the hurricane recovery efforts, whether we were back in California or right there on the Island. We had organized a local clothing drive in Southern Monterey County shortly after the hurricane, and we were able to ship more than 100 boxes of clothing and supplies to the Island. Ironically, they arrived in the town of Vega Baja during our trip, to everyone's joy.
We try to visit our home in Puerto Rico,now, as often as possible. After having a 40th wedding anniversary party there in July of 2018, we decided that we wanted to offer the opportunity to have weddings, receptions, and family reunions there at the house, in addition to the regular vacationers. We have a great "team" in place. We hope that you can decide to visit there for a special event or just a get-away, and that you find the setting so beautiful that you might be inspired to have a Puerto Rico vacation home of your own.