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."
