Our Journey

Rotten Hill History

Andrew hitched a ride across the Atlantic, setting sail from the West coast of Scotland on Christmas Eve 1979 aboard the 49-foot yawl Rinamara and arrived in English Harbour in mid-February. He was invited to visit Haiti, where he was asked to help with the design of a house and in the process became very aware of his passion for helping people create their dream homes. After six months he returned to Antigua to design for a friend, and his career took off shortly this, when he was asked to refurbish and expand the Curtain Bluff hotel. Beautiful friendships flourished, making it impossible to go back to England.

It wasn’t long before Andrew started looking for land to build his own home and in 1983 he purchased a two-acre hillside lot to the East of English Harbour, overlooking the historical Dockyard as well as Falmouth Harbour. Research into an old Admiralty map showed that the village immediately below used to be known as "Rotten Town", being the not so posh part of the harbour in the navy times. The land had been on the market for many years, but for Andrew it was immediately clear that this was the spot. He took his time designing and building his dream home, finally moving in on his 39th birthday in 1990. 

The land was very steep in parts making the creation of a garden very difficult but there was an abundance of loose volcanic boulders on the site, so a series of retaining walls were built over a period of several years to create the numerous terraces with footpaths and steps that are the chief characteristic of the garden. His passion for landscaping and palms in particular was tempered only by the relatively low rainfall in the area, but slowly and patiently a drought-tolerant exotic palm garden was established which continues to change with time.

In September 1995 Antigua took a direct hit from powerful Hurricane Louis, but as always after the storm came the sunshine and with it came Dina. On a November day, while in the process of restoring the hurricane damages at Rotten Hill, Andrew met Dina at “Casa di Sogni D’Oro”, or “House of Golden Dreams”, an Italianate villa on Jumby Bay, he had designed a few years before. It was love at first sight, but four years went by before Dina could finally live with Andrew at Rotten Hill and continue to share his lifelong love for this little corner of paradise and the people of Antigua.

In 2017 a bulldozer started clearing the land below and to the Northwest of Rotten Hill, ostensibly for a new development of 280 apartments! As soon as Andrew and Dina walked the cleared area, they were struck by the incredible quietness of this hidden valley and its direct alignment with Sugar Loaf, the symmetrical pyramidal hill on the West side of Falmouth Harbour that has a powerful symbolic and energetic presence.

They were able to purchase several acres and embarked on a long seven years of construction, building several retreat cottages, the Studios, the yoga pavilion and various other structures.

While the original main house remains their one and only home, it is with great pleasure that they share these recent additions with dear friends, family and overseas visiting guests from around the world.