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Caribbean Journal sits down with Tim Peck to discuss OBMI’s latest design project, Scrub Island in the British Virgin Islands, a residential and resort property off Tortola. Peck talked to Caribbean Journal about the Scrub Island project, about making Caribbean hotels environmentally friendly, and how the capitalization of luxury development in the region has changed.

What was the design process like for Scrub Island?

We designed the initial master planning on the property, then did all of the detail design work for the architecture and the marina, and took it through the approval process. I was somewhat involved in the construction process as well. It’s an interesting project, it’s fairly unique in terms of what’s been happening in the Caribbean recently. It’s basically developing an island from nothing. There was nothing there, no infrastructure, it was what you call a “virgin” Virgin Island. We literally had to start from scratch with the planning process and think about how we could preserve as much as we could of the character and personality of the island, while still managing to produce a development which produces the financial criteria for the developers. Everything was kept in its virgin, natural form. On the north side, which has a beautiful beach, we kept that, with virtually no development at all. The only thing there is, is a small beach bar. One of the other interesting things is that there was a lot of discussion during the process about the name of the island, because obviously “scrub” is not one of the more romantic names you can get for a resort. But what is nice, are the origins of it. About 350 years ago, the British Virgin Islands was a haven for pirates and buccaneers in the eastern Caribbean. And what they used to do was take their boats to Scrub Island and haul them out on the shallows and actually scrub the barnacles off the bottom of the boats, hence the name Scrub island. It does have some nice bit of history. Now the only kind of scrubbing you get there is the exfoliation you get in the spa!