7.3 FEATURE PROJECT: ANI VILLAS, ANGUILLA

Overlooking the Caribbean from a bluff on the coast of Anguilla is a stunning project designed by LHSA+DP – Lee H. Skolnick Architecture + Design Partnership out of New York. Anguilla was the northernmost island of the Leeward Islands trip we made in June 2013 and I had planned to spend two days photographing the two villas. Despite a meticulous plan one always has to make an allowance for the unforeseen and Ani Villas presented its own little surprise. Rohan Gopaldas, my local contact, was new to his job and was quite apprehensive about meeting a couple of unknown photographers – after all we Trinis now make world news – and not always good either! Rohan was still settling into his new job at Ani Villas and was responsible for an impressive team of staff that had the daunting task of ‘turning around’ the Ani Villas between tenants within 24 hours. I had planned to have 48 hours at this project but because of ‘check out’ and ‘check in’ deadlines, it turned out to be cut in half. I was quite impressed with the formidable team of staff that ‘turns around’ the Ani Villas and found myself having to photograph between them busily moving around doing their clean up. Other than a disappointing sunset and the proliferation of service vehicles it was a real privilege to photograph Ani Villas. Wish I could afford to stay there for a week!