(Bloomberg) -- In 2011, John Mack, the former chief executive officer of Morgan Stanley, was on a yacht in the British Virgin Islands with his wife, Christy, when the captain made an unusual suggestion to the couple. “Our captain said, you should go see this land that a developer wants to turn into a really premier resort area,” Christy Mack recalls.
Even though it was what she says was a “cold, dreary, nasty, rainy day,” they got on a tender and met the developer, David Johnson, who showed them what would soon be the low-density, 400-acre enclave Oil Nut Bay on the northeast tip of Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands. Soon after, they bought a raw piece of land in the development but struggled for years to find an architect (let alone a design) they were happy with. In 2015 they “traded in” the empty lot, putting the credit toward the purchase of a spec house on the beach.
The Macks used the house for Christmas vacation that year, but after spending a few days on the property, Mack says she informed her family: “I can’t do this. We have to gut it. And so we did.”
Four years later, in 2019 they actually moved in for good, flying down for long weekends and staying for extended periods during the Covid-19 pandemic. But now, the couple is “selling off stuff that has complicated our lives, as wonderful and fabulous as the house has been,” she says. As such, they’re putting it on the market with Roz Colthart, real estate director at Corcoran BVI, for $29.5 million.
The Renovation
Including the trade-in of the raw land, the spec house cost the Macks $10.5 million, Mack says. She loved the existing building’s roughly 6,000-square-foot footprint, and they both loved the location on half an acre, which has direct access to the beach and is steps from the community’s club, tennis courts, gym and pickleball courts. “You could walk everywhere,” she says. “It was nice to have everything at your fingertips.”
It was the inside she couldn’t stand. “It wasn’t to my taste, and it wasn’t practical,” Mack says of the house’s interior. “It wasn’t user friendly, there was wasted space, and I like a homier feel.” Plus, she continues, “I wanted something that could be a chameleon and rise to the occasion for whatever we wanted to do in the house, whether it be family, whether it be a cocktail party with people in the development, whether it would be weekend guests that we would have down with us.”
Adding that flexibility required a lot of demolition. They “knocked down everything,” Mack says, changing the location of windows and doors and walls and appliances.
The process wasn’t without its hiccups, including when a major hurricane hit the island in 2017, and “we had to do a lot of reconstruction of the reconstruction,” Mack says. In total, she estimates the renovation cost $18 million, meaning if it sells for the list price, they’ll just get their money out of the home. “We’re not trying to gouge anybody,” she says. “I think it’s a very fair price.”
The House
The revised layout has six en suite bedrooms (there’s an additional half-bath), a huge outdoor entertainment area, and carefully landscaped grounds that include a pool and hot tub.
The house is shaped like a U, with a central core facing the beach, and two wings extending toward the rear of the property. Visitors enter between the wings, through a foyer into a massive living-dining area that overlooks the water. That same space has an open kitchen by the dining table. The floors, Mack says, are porcelain tile made to look like wood. Common room walls are clad with Teflon-coated linen wallpaper, which do wonders, she says, to absorb sound; bedrooms have vinyl wallpaper for easy cleaning, and the media room walls are upholstered in sound-absorbent fabric.
Also in the building’s core is a media and game room; flanking the living-dining room are two huge bedroom suites, each of which comes with large walk-in closets. Another two bedroom suites mirror each other on either wing; then in the very back, one wing has a chef prep kitchen and a chef’s bedroom; the other wing ends in yet another guest suite.
“Everything is custom,” Mack says. “All the furniture, all the lighting, everything.” (With the exception of a few items, all of the furniture and decoration is included in the purchase price.)
Despite that the Macks spent almost as much time renovating the house as they spent using it, they’ve decided now is the time to let go. “Our kids want to do other things and don’t want to feel obligated to go down there every winter,” she explains. “We have a very, very close family, and they’ve been victims of our whims for years. And now we're going to be their victims.”
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