The Old Hollywood History of St. Croix’s Skyhawk Villa

Five years ago, architect and hotelier Chris Pardo, cofounder of the boutique ARRIVE hospitality brand (now part of the popular Palisociety hotel group), found himself knee-deep in several design projects on St. Croix. "I’ve always loved the island," says Chris, who first learned about the tropical locale through a real estate brochure when he was just 12 years old. "As I was flipping through, I found this property for sale called the King Christian Hotel. It was forty rooms on the waterfront in St. Croix and selling for $700,000."

Even at that young age, something drew Chris to the hotel—and the island at large—and nearly three decades later he purchased the property with plans to renovate. "I’d been in the hotel business for a while," he says, noting that by the time the pandemic hit, he had two major hospitality projects underway on St. Croix (with plans for more) and was spending at least 50 percent of the year on the island, often crashing long-term at a buddy’s place. "That’s when I started looking for a permanent house," Chris says. "I couldn’t just keep staying with my friend for the rest of my life. At a certain point you’re like, Okay, I’m too old to be couch surfing."

Chris kicked off his search one night while browsing real estate listings—a hobby he admits to indulging when insomnia hits. "I was looking on auction.com," he remembers, "and I saw this house. It was one of only three properties for sale in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and I couldn’t believe I didn’t recognize it."

Punching the address into his phone, Chris saw that the house was perched on a cliff overlooking St. Croix’s main town, Christiansted. The image on the listing had been taken from an odd angle, making it nearly unrecognizable as the landmark villa just up from the bay, visible from the main highway. "I realized that I see this house every single day," he says, "so I just drove up there. It was completely abandoned. The fences were all falling down, so I climbed inside and walked through it. The house wasn’t in great shape—it had plants growing through the floors, old furniture everywhere, and it needed a lot of repairs and updates."

Despite the derelict conditions, Chris saw through the mess and knew the property had potential. "First I saw the view," he says, noting the unobstructed sight lines to the lush green hills and bright-blue harbor. "Then, there was the swimming pool. Even though it was broken up and in bad shape, the fact that it was already there meant I could fix it." The structure’s distinctive footprint—two round towers connected by a breezeway—and original terrazzo floors were an added bonus.

After his late-night scouting session, Chris started digging for the house’s history, sifting through Google for mentions of the property. His search led to articles about midcentury Hollywood actress Maureen O’Hara and her third husband, Charles F. Blair Jr., who moved to the island in the 1970s. Blair, an aviation pioneer made famous by his 1951 solo flight over the North Pole, had launched a commuter airline, Antilles Air Boats, in Christiansted Harbor in 1963. ("It ended up being the largest seaplane company in the world in its time," says Chris.) The couple hired Wisconsin architect John Randal McDonald—who, in the 1940s studied under the likes of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Richard Neutra, and Louis Kahn at Yale—to design their St. Croix villa, from which O’Hara could watch her husband take off and land from the port below.

Although McDonald never studied under Frank Lloyd Wright, his work is often compared to Wright’s: a more stripped-down version of the Prairie School style, with dramatic rooflines, an emphasis on humble, affordable materials, and a connection to nature. It is estimated that McDonald designed between 20 and 40 projects in the Caribbean throughout his career (although many have been lost to hurricanes over the years). Though Blair was tragically killed in a 1978 plane crash, after which O’Hara briefly ran Antilles Air Boats (making her the first woman president and CEO of a scheduled U.S. airline), the Irish-American actress kept the villa as her primary residence for decades, even restoring it to its original state after it was largely destroyed in a 1989 hurricane.

Enamored by the villa’s history—and hoping to put down some roots for himself and his wife, Malcomb—Chris placed an offer on the property, winning the auction by default, as he was the only bidder. The closing process took a year and a half, by which time he had fully planned the renovation, from furniture to fixtures and finishes. "I wanted to retain the unique shape," he says, explaining that the breezeway-connected towers originally served as two apartments: one for Blair and O’Hara, and one for guests—the couple was known to host members of the Hollywood jet set, such as John Wayne, Ginger Rogers, Victor Borge, and Lauren Bacall. "One tower had their living room, a little dining room, and the bedroom above, and the second tower was called the John Wayne wing," Chris explains. The actor had appeared beside O’Hara in five movies and the two became good friends. "That’s where he stayed every time he was here."

Looking to retain the original shape but create a better connection between the two towers, Chris enclosed the existing breezeway with French doors, turning the former pass-through into a living room with three ground-floor bedrooms tucked behind it. The new space links the east tower’s dining area and kitchen with the west tower’s family room. "We gained something like six hundred square feet," he says. Each tower is capped with a bedroom, and a lower-level studio with a bathroom and kitchen in the west tower is the preferred hideaway for Chris’s 20-year-old son when he comes to visit. Malcomb has 15-year-old twins, so it was important for everyone to have their own space, but the couple wanted plenty of opportunities—both indoors and out—for the family to gather for meals, pool time, or end-of-the-day conversation.

When Chris took on the home, it had an extensive amount of damage due to weather and neglect, as well as five or six layers of paint in places. "I sandblasted them to expose the wood," he explains, "so the ceilings in the towers are the original cypress." Other salvaged elements include the terrazzo flooring, some repurposed mahogany doors, and the swimming pool, while new creature comforts and necessities—air-conditioning, hurricane strappings, solar panels, an outdoor zone with grass, a dining area, and a pizza oven—make the home livable for Chris and his family, while providing some resort-like luxuries for visiting friends and relatives. Inside, the rooms embrace a contemporary tropical aesthetic—the tadelakt (traditional Moroccan plaster) walls and surfaces, which help deter moisture and mold, pair well with teak cabinetry and woven and rattan decor in a neutral palette of creams, whites, and browns. Curved furnishings echo the arced details in the architecture.

For most people, the easier choice would have been to knock down the tired house and start from scratch, but once Chris discovered its background, there was only one way forward. "After I understood the history a little bit more, my main goal was to maintain as much of the existing historic aspects as possible," he says. "It was such a challenge thinking of how to work with those shapes, but I was excited about that. Architects love a constraint—it always gives you a much better product in the end."

Top photo courtesy Chris Pardo

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