Times of the Islands Spring 2021

sustained significant damage from
the storms and never reopened. Jay
occasionally came back and worked
on liquidating some assets […] but
otherwise the place was abandoned
and hurricane damage was left unrepaired.
Over the years we would drive
past when we were on visits to North
Caicos, and reminisce about our
great stay there.”
On one of those trips, in 2015,
Jim and Melanie saw a “For Sale” sign
on the gate. Jim continues, “Melanie
and I are biology professors in North
Carolina, and we were both feeling
increasingly burned-out and ready
for a change. We agreed that we were
at a ‘fork in the road’ in our careers;
we could either change now or run
out our careers until full retirement.
So when we saw the ‘For Sale’ sign, Treehouse is one of two open-concept cabanas for guests to stay at Bottle Creek Lodge.
we looked at each other and thought
the same thing.”
After much thought and discussion, the Browns completed
a purchase in the summer of 2016 and began in good enough shape for us to live in while we worked
Creek Lodge, one of the cabanas (we call it Seaside) was
renovations. There was much to be done, and much history
to both honor and build on.
call it Treehouse) was in much greater need of repair,
on it and the other buildings. The other small cabana (we
both inside and out. The roof of the larger two-room
Hilton-Gibbs-Johnson
cabana (we call it Elizabeth’s Cabana) had a flat roof
The main stone-and-frame structure on the property which also served as the deck for the main house. It was
was built as a private home by Englishman Fred Hilton. in very poor condition. The roof had been leaking for
When Howard Gibbs bought it in 1997, some time after eight years, the siding was rotten, and there was standing
water inside. The main house also had a leaky roof on
Hilton’s death, he focused on turning the property into
an eco-lodge. He expanded the main house (adding a the incorporated spaces of the front and back porches,
restaurant), built the cottages and a workshop, and but was generally sound. The workshop was also in good
worked extensively in the gardens. His vision was to keep shape, except that water blown in under the open eaves
the lodge ecologically sustainable and small; Gibbs even had soaked all the remaining fixtures, tools and hardware,
converting them to rust. Everything that had been
installed composting toilets in the cottages, hoping to
draw tourists who wanted to live lightly while exploring at the waterline, including the boathouse and elaborate
another land and culture.
dock and boardwalk, had been destroyed by the hurricanes.”
When the Johnsons purchased the place in the early
2000s, the focus shifted toward fishing. Sandy and Jay The Browns set to work in the summer of 2016, doing
built a boathouse, dock and boardwalk and ran fishing what they could themselves, but hiring Kenny Higgs and
charters out of the property while maintaining it as a Kenneth Hall for most of the renovations: replacing the
guest lodge and restaurant. The hurricanes, however, put roof, wiring and plumbing; re-doing interior walls; repairing
cisterns; and doing renovations to the kitchen and
an end to their efforts.
According to Brown, “After Hanna and Ike in 2008, the bathroom. Seaside and Treehouse renovations have been
place was empty and continued to succumb to weather completed, and there is a new, smaller dock. Work is still
and damage for eight years. When we bought Bottle under way on the larger cabana, workshop and gardens.
Times of the Islands Spring 2021 71