Editor's Note: This story originally appeared on Live and Invest Overseas.
Lee and Jennifer Scott were ready to retire when their son graduated from college.
“We sold the house, sold the cars and did what many dream of doing,” says Lee. “We bought a sailboat, left the States and sailed south to our island property.”
“I needed the adventure to take my mind off the reality that my only child was not coming home after college, that he would be busy following the career path of his choosing,” adds Jennifer.
Sailing away
Jennifer had been in the military, so uprooting and exploring new horizons was not as daunting for her; instead, it was exciting.
Lee’s background is in technology, “But it was always Lee’s dream to literally sail away,” says Jennifer.
They met on a dating website and set off on a life of discovery, building a home on an island coveted for its beauty and nature.
Finding an ideal location to build
“The reason we came as far south as we did was to get below the hurricane belt, which was pretty much limited us to Costa Rica and farther south,” says Lee.
“We were going to take a whole year to look around,” says Jennifer, “but a friend of mine, an expert on South and Central America, toured around with us and helped us shortcut the decision-making process.
“The areas we were looking at were known to be underdeveloped, famous for good sailing and provided easy access to the United States. I wanted to be able to fly back quickly — I did not want the whole 16-hour flight thing.
“The islands here are so gorgeous. We just fell in love with them, how beautiful and how natural they are. Neither one of us are big-city people; we like to be out with nature. After walking around the island, we redid our vacation to spend more time here.”
Building a dream home
That same year, the couple bought property on the island and made plans to build their dream home.
There were some stumbling blocks and frustration in the building process.
“I think the biggest shock for people coming from the United States is that there is no heavy equipment whatsoever to build a house. When they put in the giant beams that hold our house up, six men with ropes pulled the beams in place” says Jennifer.
She adds that all the heavy digging was done one wheelbarrow at a time by three people.
“That slows things down a lot and makes things a lot less precise, too. Our house is not exactly square, but that’s okay because it works for us.”
A longer-than-expected timeline
Once Lee and Jennifer bought the land, they started building their house two years later.
“The developer told us to ‘come on down, the house will be ready when you get here,’ but when we showed up on the sailboat a year later, not even the foundation was completely done,” she says.
Had they known the house wasn’t yet built, they would have stayed working in the States another year before moving down.
Jennifer says, “We were probably naive … we should have asked to see pictures of the house.”
Keeping life fresh
In general, attention to detail was not quite what Jennifer was used to in the States, so there were some things that needed to be redone.
“If they’re putting tile on a wall, they don’t really care if it isn’t exactly straight across, stuff like that,” she explains. “Fortunately, Lee was there every day, so he was able to do a lot of correcting in the work process.
“My advice to anyone having a home built is to always be on site. You can’t just hire a builder here and walk away. It’s just not possible.”
When I ask what keeps them here, Jennifer answers, “We unexpectedly built a house that was too big and turned it into a bed and breakfast. So we have a very small business. And now that Lee has started a marina project, we will stay and see that through.
“After the marina is in, it’s very possible that we’ll be thinking about selling and going somewhere else,” she adds, “not because we don’t like it here, but because we want to keep life fresh, travel more and have other experiences.
“If somebody walked up to us tomorrow and wanted to buy, then we would be in the ‘consideration pot.’ But to get our attention, it would have to be a million-dollar offer.”
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