New York Times Article About Restoring Our House in Vieques

Hey guys,

We published an article in the New York Times this week about the three adventure-filled years we spent renovating our house in Vieques.  Take a look and share it with your friends!

Cheers, Patrick and Michael

Transforming an Island House, and Ourselves

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A Blooming Disaster

Okay, folks, I realize I’ve yammered on quite a bit about our garden over the past couple of years. So let me apologize in advance for bringing it up again.

But trust me, you’d have plenty to say too.

To begin with, the garden we inherited from the previous owner was an unqualified disaster. Not only was it overrun with scraggly, deeply unattractive plants, including a diseased avocado tree that yielded a couple of bowls’ worth of homemade guacamole before giving up the ghost…

…it was also ornamented with such choice items as a rusted Buick chassis, several massive blobs of cement that looked like petrified cow patties, and four concrete pylons we dubbed Stonehenge South.

That was the back yard. Sad to say, it constituted the good news on the horticultural front.

The yard facing the road was even worse, though in an entirely different way. Whereas the back yard featured an over-abundance of singularly unattractive features, the front yard boasted almost no features at all.

It was bare and rocky and unloved. And every time we planted something in it, said thing either expired of its own accord or got eaten by horses.

Or was dug up and thrown out by our gardener.

I’m not kidding. It was like we’d put an ad on Craigslist for “Worst Gardener in the Caribbean.” The guy who de-forested our garden and threw out our favorite plants even came with references, including an alleged stint as a gardener at Disney World. Come to think of it, he was pretty Dopey.

So we canned him and spent the next few months replenishing our garden and building a privacy fence…

…at which point Hurricane Irene thoughtfully swept through and knocked our prize coconut tree right over onto the fence, splitting it in half.

We paid $700 to have that tree replanted and within two months it was certifiably dead. Then we paid $300 to have its carcass hauled away.

Next—well, next we hired a new gardener, who started out gangbusters. He and his cheerful, rawboned girlfriend completely transformed our garden in two days.

We could hardly believe our luck. But on the third day he came over with a chain saw and climbed up into our mango tree and boy, did I smell trouble with a capital T. Before long, several enormous branches came crashing down onto the other end of our lattice fence, pretty much flattening it.

I swear, something about that fence said, “abuse me.”

We tried to be philosophical about the whole thing. Nobody’s perfect, accidents happen.

Then one day about a week later the same guy severed our gas line while trimming the bougainvillea bush near the back door. That was almost the last straw, until Michael reminded me that an even-moderately-okay gardener is hard to find in Vieques. So we kept quiet.

But pretty soon the guy seemed to lose interest altogether. As in, he quit showing up.

Our garden reverted to its former self within a month. As Jane used to say, nature happens fast in Vieques.

We have a new gardener now. He came with sterling references and seemed like a truly great human being when I interviewed him by phone.

When we finally met him in person we liked him a lot. He seemed to think our ideas were great and said “perfecto” a lot. I’m a sucker for anyone who thinks my gardening concepts are anywhere within ten miles of perfect, so I was pretty much sold.

He trimmed and replanted our garden, wired together our doomed fence and generally made everything right again. We were in love.

Until the next time we visited. “I give your garden a nice haircut,” he announced the day before our arrival.

Oh no.

He wasn’t kidding. In fact, he had scalped it.

All the lush tropical plants he had installed three months earlier were now pruned within an inch of their lives.

“Why?” I asked him the next day.

He scratched his head thoughtfully. “They will come back very booshy,” he replied.

“I want them booshy now, while I’m here.”

“Oh.”

So Michael and I went to the nursery the next day and bought a few hundred bucks’ worth of plants. After four or five hours of backbreaking work everything looked swell again.

After that, I told our maybe-not-so-fabulous gardener “no more haircuts.”

He laughed and said “okay, sure,” as if the whole thing was one big joke. Which, of course, it is.

Unfortunately, the joke’s on us.

If you enjoyed this anecdote, check out my book Tropic of Sunshine (www.tropicofsunshine.com)

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Tropic of Sunshine is a hit!

Hey everybody,

It’s official–my book, Tropic of Sunshine, is a hit!

And it’s making lots of people laugh.

The book has gotten great reviews on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and iTunes. Here are a few excerpts:

“Well written and hysterically funny.”

“I loved this book! A fun, breezy tropical read about two guys who bought a house on a Puerto Rican island and restored it despite a million setbacks. I read it in two afternoons and enjoyed every page. A fun escape!”

“A fast-paced, extraordinarily funny story of how two men won the battle of attrition against a bevy of surly workmen, faced down terrifying local flora and fauna alike, and triumphed over their own trepidations to create the home of their dreams.”

“The book made me laugh out loud and gave me such a great sense of what the island must be like. Now I want to go visit!”

“It’s so well-written you can easily imagine yourself on those beautiful beaches and you may find yourself planning your own trip.”

We hope you’ll grab your own copy soon—and join in the fun!

Patrick

http://www.tropicofsunshine.com

 

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A Tomb with a View

Ever fantasized about stretching out on a gentle hillside beside the ocean for a good long snooze?

Depending on how long you’re actually planning to remain in the horizontal position, you might want to consider the Vieques Municipal Cemetery.

Granted, most of the cemetery’s inhabitants have made longer-term commitments than you’ll probably want to make. In fact, a good number of them seem to be anticipating very long stays, and quite a few have even built little houses for themselves.

But a less binding, more vertical, commitment is also possible. Just stroll five minutes west of the village of Isabel II in Vieques, and you’ll find yourself in the quaint cemetery that’s not only beautiful in itself but also boasts a million-dollar ocean view that’s—well—to die for.

I’ve always been a sucker for cemeteries. When I lived in London and popped over to Paris on a regular basis, I visited the famous Père-Lachaise cemetery several times to stand before the graves of such luminaries as Gertrude Stein, Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison.

More recently, Michael and I spent a couple of hours in the Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires, where everyone who’s anyone in BA society is buried (or should I say housed), including Eva Perón of Evita fame. Lots of the mausoleums in the cemetery have glass doors, and when you peep in you can see the coffins laid out, unprotected, on marble shelves. You almost get the sense that if you knocked extra hard the residents would rouse themselves from their slumbers and invite you in for a cozy chat.

The last time Michael and I were in Vieques we decided to explore the island’s cemetery, which we’ve driven (or biked) past scores of times without stopping. Although it’s not a sprawling necropolis like Père-Lachaise or Recoleta, it tells the usual sad and poignant tale of all cities of the dead—lives lived to the fullest, lives cut too short, spouses laid out side by side for all time.

It’s an interesting spot to reflect on your own life, if only for a few bittersweet moments.

And though it’s smaller than Père-Lachaise or Recoleta, its view is much better than either.

Take that, Evita!

[If you enjoyed this sketch of Vieques, you’ll find lots more like it in my book, Tropic of Sunshine, available on Kindle, Nook and Apple iBooks. www.tropicofsunshine.com]

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Escape the winter doldrums!

Don’t know about you guys, but Michael and I are pretty much maxed out on this whole winter thing.  Our quota of gloomy, frigid days has long since been reached–and now we’re casting our thoughts southward to sunny Vieques.  Here’s a recent photo of our house, complete with the blooming vine that has just about taken over our relatively new lattice fence. As Jane always says, nature happens fast in Vieques.

If’ you’d like to know more about our eight-year adventure renovating our house, during which we battled every possible impediment from dry rot to drunken gardeners, grab a copy of our book, Tropic of Sunshine, http://tropicofsunshine.com and transport yourself to a land of sunshine, laughter and warmth.

http://tropicofshine.com  is available on Kindle, Nook and iBook for only $3,27.

It’s guaranteed to get you through these last, dreary, completely unacceptable days of winter!

Patrick

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Happy Holidays–or Bah Humbug!

Love the holidays?

Great!

Pour yourself some mulled wine, grab your e-reader and curl up by the fire with a copy of my book, Tropic of Sunshine.

http://tropicofsunshine.com

Hate the holidays?

That’s okay too.

Tropic of Sunshine barely mentions Christmas.

Enjoy!

(available on Kindle, Nook and iBooks)

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Tropic of Sunshine is now available on Apple iBooks

Hey everybody,

Tropic of Sunshine is now available (finally) on Apple iBooks.

Grab a copy and join us for the wacky Tropic of Sunshine journey!

http://www.tropicofsunshine.com

See you there!

Patrick

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Off to a Great Start!

Hey everyone,

Thanks for your support and positive messages about Tropic of Sunshine. I noticed today on Amazon that the book has been prominently featured in the Hot New Releases in the Caribbean Travel category. Hooray!

I forgot to mention in my last post that I’ve created a new website for the book. Please check it out and click the Facebook “Like” button if you’re plugged in to social media. Also follow us on Twitter: @viequesguy

No word yet about when the Barnes & Noble Nook or Apple iBooks version will be available – I’ll let you know as soon as I hear!

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Tropic of Sunshine is now available on Amazon Kindle

Hey everyone,

Vieques Dream House Diary is now available as Tropic of Sunshine on Amazon Kindle. It will be available soon on Barnes & Noble Nook and Apple iBooks.

Click on the Amazon logo below to purchase a copy for your Kindle.

Happy reading!

Patrick

 

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Tropic of Sunshine (an e-book based on Vieques Dream House Diary) to be published November 2012

Hi everyone,

I’m writing today to thank you all for being such loyal readers of Vieques Dream House Diary over the past year and a half. Amazingly, the blog has been viewed almost 66,000 times.

At the suggestion of a bunch of readers, I’ve converted the blog into an e-book, which will be published in November 2012 under the title Tropic of Sunshine.

Here’s a preview of the cover:

The e-book will include new sections and new photographs (for a total of more than 120 color photos), and will be available on most e-readers, including Kindles, Nooks, and iPads.

Thanks again for your unflagging interest in the Casa Dos Chivos project and for your wonderful feedback. I can’t wait to hear what you think about Tropic of Sunshine.

Patrick Youngblood

P.S. Don’t forget, I’m always happy to hear from you at viequesguys@gmail.com.

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