Living On Vacation

The give and take of splitting your time between St. John and elsewhere.

by Kelly O'Brien

St. John residents Linda Stuckert and her husband George recently had a debate over the question: "If we go somewhere, does it still count as a vacation?" An interesting quandary. When you live someplace that everyone else considers vacation-land, does that mean you're living on vacation?
The Stuckerts certainly feel that way. Before their move they'd already spent quite a bit of time on St. John, as George's family has a lot of history on the island. When his father passed in 2001, George and Linda decided take over the family business, St. John Homes, and move here for good - mostly.
They'd been living in Longmont, Colorado, and while it was easy to say goodbye to the 8-5 grind, well, leaving grandkids, family, friends - that wasn't so simple. So the Stuckerts joined the ranks of St. Johnians who split their time between our island paradise and somewhere else.
At first blush, splitting your time seems like the perfect setup - you can take advantage of all the pleasures of paradise during season, and then skip off to some less-sweltering location for the summer months. Robin Gallup will attest that splitting your time can certainly give you the best of both worlds. Robin and her husband Rick spend half of the year (the good half) here, running Long Distance sailing charters, and the other half (the stormy half) up in Maine...and New Hampshire, and wherever they decide to ride their motorcycles to that summer. "It seems like a very glamorous lifestyle," Robin says, "but pretty much you do it for the lifestyle because you don't do it for the money."
But that doesn't mean that splitting your time means you have to sacrifice your career - just ask Dr. John Purpura. The owner of St. John Dental also lives here and there, but he does it simultaneously. Every 10 days or so, Purpura heads up to New York City for three days at his offices in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Being in both places lends his life, and his business, an enviable balance.
"Bringing some of the coziness and slow-paced-ness of the Caribbean to New York City allows me to cope with things in a nicer way," he says. It lends his office a little bit more of a down home, small town feel, which his patients appreciate.
On the flip side, Purpura says that the extremely high expectations of his New York patients (in particular the Manhattanites, who come to him with a lot of cosmetic requests) keep him on the cutting edge of technology, which means he can deliver a very high standard of service to his island clients, as well.
One of the biggest advantages of splitting your time is perspective. Going back and forth can give you a new appreciation for the things you have here, as well as the things you go back to. Kevin McKinney, captain of Born to Rhumb, spends August through November back home in York Harbor, Maine, and his time away has deepened his appreciation for his time spent here. "I definitely appreciate the beaches more - if I'd lived on St. John for 10 straight years, it'd become kind of monotone," he says.
Purpura also says that coming and going helps to keep the novelty of each place from wearing off. Here in St. John, Purpura still relishes his morning walk to work: "It's beautiful! I'm in a good mood even if it's raining - I might get a chance to see a rainbow." And in New York, he doesn't take for granted that he can hop the subway to a rock concert, a play, a museum....
But splitting your time - which really, is splitting your life - is not a simple prospect. Throughout everyone's retelling of how they first began to part-time it, there were two common threads. First, was that it's worth it. Why wouldn't you want to spend your time in two of your favorite places? Second, was that it's a lot of logistics.
"You have to be very organized, I think, to make this work," says George. One of the first hurdles, Linda says, is "what to do with all your stuff!?" When you try to take your life mobile, you'd be amazed by just how much stuff you've managed to accumulate. But even once you've pared things down, living in two places means you have two of a lot of things - cars, homes, wardrobes, bills. Keeping track of all of those can be a difficult - and so can affording them.
"The biggest challenge is that you have to at least make enough money for those transitions," says Robin. And with the exception of our jet-setting dentist, none of the part-timers we talked to have a single year-round job. So, you may wonder, how do they afford their lifestyle? Creatively, is the answer.
The Stuckerts, for example, have mitigated some of the cost by keeping a camper - rather than a house or apartment - back in Colorado. So when they return to the States from June through October, they spend it on the road, rather than all in one place.
Similarly, the expenses of living on the island combined with those of maintaining their boat led the Gallups to consolidate, choosing to live-aboard while they're here in St. John. So clearly, a certain amount of flexibility is called for when choosing to split your time - and that's not something everyone has.
Robin's first rule for anyone considering making St. John their home for half the year is to "rent a place for 2-3 months, first - it's not for everybody. You can only go to beaches and bars so many times before you realize you need something else in your life."
And the same goes for St. Johnians who are considering summering stateside. "People who've been on St. John for 30 years, same thing!" she says. "The stress, the big population, the fast-moving traffic - they can feel equally as much a fish-out-of-water."
But for some, the benefits of seasonal living certainly outweigh the hassles. For McKinney, it lets him cruise around the Caribbean without giving up summers in his childhood home. For Purpura, it lets him live both connected to the pulse of modern, urban America and to the natural rhythms of a tropical island. The Stuckerts have the chance to carry on their family's St. John legacy without entirely uprooting themselves from their former life. And the Gallups get to live their lives as gyspies of both land and sea. Who knows what seasonal living might do for you?

July 2009