Dream House | Hurricane Melissa hits rustic St Elizabeth cottage

For the Dream House article of December 24, 2023, we brought to light a charming old-time Jamaican cottage, lost in the middle of nowhere, some 2,300 feet above sea level in the Santa Cruz Mountains, by the town of Malvern, St Elizabeth.

The abode was best described as quaint, erected from wood, and roofed mostly with corrugated metal sheeting. The snug indoors were partitioned so as to have a bedroom, a sleeping loft, and a bathroom. There was space for living and dining, with a built-in bar and a kitchen. The casually appointed inside reflected locally crafted furniture and objects of a bygone era.

The porch at the front welcomed, while the bamboo-roofed back patio provided the kind of hospitality that made anyone feel instantly at home. A wilderness preserve for countless birds with fish ponds, a bamboo walk, and a vegetable garden all shared the space with roaming rabbits and chickens. It was a beauty to experience – but today, Hurricane Melissa, the Category 5 hurricane, has left the cottage with significant damage.

Owned by Yvonne Alexander and her two sisters, they now face the daunting task of reconstructing, just as they did last year with the ruinous passage of Hurricane Beryl, which took nine months to recover from. In fact, in this instance, they thought of undertaking no more risky restoration work, except for the urgent repair of broken human spirits! Two of the sisters weathered the tempest on the property.

“The roof came off in one cottage in particular, and so we had a lot of furniture damage that we’re now trying to replace because everything in there got wet. We are looking at sofas, beds, tables, and of course, the entire verandah was just ripped off,” Alexander told Sunday Lifestyle, adding that there was much damage outside as well. “We have an outdoor dining area that has also been pretty much destroyed, and we’re also looking at a lot of [downed] trees on the property. It’s a three-acre property and it has a lot of old trees which are homes for a lot of birds... and of course we have an organic garden which has been destroyed,” she said.

They are, however, grateful that the damage from Hurricane Melissa was less severe than that of Hurricane Beryl; this they owe to preparation. “We did our best to fortify the cottages because we were told now that this is a [Category] 5. This is no joke,” she shared.

With their focus now on rebuilding, they are considering all their options, including making the cottage more disaster-proof. How can that be done? “That’s a million-dollar question,” said Alexander. “Because, as you would appreciate, [these] are wooden cottages and there is very little we can do in terms of if we were to look at for instance, changing the roof from zinc. It is nearly impossible, as far as I know, because you can’t put on a slab roof, for instance.”

Eager to have the repairs completed by the end of the year, they will be keeping sandbags and plywood on hand in preparation for any future storms. “We didn’t use sandbags this time around, so those we’re looking to secure in case something pops up on us suddenly next year. And we just have to go back to securing the zinc roofing on the cottages until somebody can tell us what we can do differently,” said Alexander.

So they will repair a roof that had mostly taken flight, replace a partly disappeared front porch (with railings), and a demolished rear patio, while swapping water-damaged furniture for new pieces – beds, sofas, tables, etc. A fish pond will return, so too the vegetable garden, the outside bathtub, and more of the melodious sounds of the bird population, all severely battered and all to be restored.

Barry Rattray is a dream house designer and builder. Email feedback to barryrattray1@hotmail.com and lifestyle@gleanerjm.com.