Here’s what you should know about our home…

It isn’t perfect. In fact, it’s far from perfect. To us, however, it’s the little imperfections that give our home the quirk and character that make Sunset Shanti unique and memorable, and differentiate it from the hundreds of other villas on St John.

Sunset Shanti reminds us of a place that is near and dear to our hearts, the place where we met and spent the first few years of our lives together: New Orleans. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the city, New Orleans is a place of extremes; it is a place that is home to the highest of highs, coupled with the lowest of lows. Hot days are hot, cold days are cold. It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the city’s commotion, sometimes total chaos. The streets of New Orleans are gutted with potholes, and a walk on Bourbon Street early on a Sunday morning will fill your senses with a combination of skunked beer and day-old urine.

Still, there is something about New Orleans that the right soul will find electrifying. The city radiates an energy that is unlike anywhere else in the world, and lures in those curious, creative, eccentric minds. It’s an energy that feels almost tangible; the jazzy rhythms that pulsate through your veins as you march along Frenchman Street, the tantalizingly sweet aroma of freshly powdered beignets from the cafe next door that drenches your lips in saliva, the people themselves who bring life to the city through their passion, fearlessness, and resilience - New Orleans is a place that makes you feel something. It is a place where everyone belongs; New Orleans is an identity in and of itself.

Even though we had minimal resources, we prioritized making this space uniquely our own by adding some personal style and flare.

Sunset Shanti has been this kind of place for us.

When we first bought our home in November 2018, it was, simply put, a mass of abandoned wreckage. After Hurricanes Irma and Maria had blown through more than a year prior, Sunset Shanti, or Sunset Cove, as it was referred to at the time, had been left untouched, buried underneath piles of hurricane debris. The place was littered with everything from broken glass, to splintered fragments of crippled beams and remnants of old furniture. The roof in the living room had blown off, and a puddle (or perhaps more aptly, a pond) of murky, algae-ridden rainwater pooled in the corner of the living room floor. The kitchen was left exposed to the elements, pots and pans and mangled appliances strewn recklessly throughout.

Despite the obvious rubble and destruction, however, there was a certain charm, a feeling of hope and of potential, that permeated the remains. In the same way that New Orleans captured us wholly, Sunset Cove made an instant imprint on our young, ambitious, and perhaps a little wild hearts. We were taken by the view from the deck (second to none we’d seen before), by the sublime landscape and overgrown, unkempt wildlife that gave the place a sort-of jungly vibe, by the ruins themselves, and the world of promise that lay beneath the crumbling walls and heaps of debris.

From that moment on, our lives changed drastically.

We channeled all of our energy into the cleanup and fixes that were most pressing. We also worked as full-time teachers at the time, so our days were consumed by schoolwork, our nights by hauling debris, power-washing, painting, and so on. It was a period of long days and scant sleep.

Because we needed rental income in order to make our mortgage payments, we gave ourselves three weeks to make necessary repairs before we opened our doors to our first set of AirBnb guests. (Those poor guests - we had no idea what we were in for!) Slowly, with each group of new tenants, we became better and better at our craft, taking every piece of feedback to heart and making tweaks and adjustments to our plans.

As we became more successful, we made upgrades, and piece by piece, we built what would become Sunset Shanti.

During the off-season, when we had very few bookings, we decided to make use of the vacancy and spent the nights between bookings living in the rental unit downstairs. This helped us enormously; it is one thing to see the space objectively and imagine what it might be like to stay there, and an entirely different thing to live and experience our own vacation rental firsthand. This helped us prioritize upgrades and make improvements based on what the space really needed, not simply what we perceived to be important from an outsider’s perspective.

For example, we felt frustrated by the “kitchen” setup, and found ourselves eating out more than we wanted. (To be fair, the plug-in single-burner stovetop was all we could afford when we first opened for business, and it served its purpose loyally during the months prior, but we knew it was time for something more substantial.) Subsequently, we conceptualized and built the more permanent outdoor kitchen, which has become a staple of the Sunset Shanti experience.

To this day, we continue to learn and to grow.

Every experience, every interaction, every piece of feedback (both positive and negative - and, yes, there have been a few negative experiences), have taught us so much about ourselves, about the industry, and about people in general. We have learned that this line of work necessitates patience, perseverance, and self-reflection. We’ve learned the values of authenticity, compassion, perspective, and creative expression. We’ve learned to speak with confidence, yet poise and gentleness, to check ourselves before we blame someone else, to take comfort inside of ourselves, and to trust our instincts. We’ve learned that there is meaning and there are and lessons to be learned in every one of life’s peaks and valleys. We’ve learned what it means to love what we do, and to wake up each morning excited for a new day.

We are grateful for each and every one of our guests, our followers, and our supporters. Thank you for believing in us and helping us turn this wild fantasy into a reality.

We are not done with this project, not even close. Stay tuned for more upgrades and developments in the near future. Cheers to continuing to learn and grow as individuals, a new ROOF, and, hopefully, the grand opening of a new rental unit in ~November 2020!