Walk With Me: The Houses Found On Harbour Island, Bahamas

Please put your comfortable walking shoes on (or at the very least imagine doing so). I’m going to take you on a tour around Harbour Island so that you can See What I See.

Most of the homes on the island have been there for a really long time (some well over 250 years). As such, they have survived countless tropical storms.

When any building occurs, most of the materials have to be brought to the island from other islands or countries. This means that people generally try to keep their houses in descent repair and they work with what they’ve got. I observed a lot of “fixing” instead of automatically disposing of and replacing with “new”.

This is what makes the houses on the island so charming

(At least in my humble opinion, anyway.)

Not once did I see apartment buildings or cookie-cutter subdivisions. Most homes are single, stand-alone dwellings with yards filled with interesting trees, plantings and flowers.

Have a look at the thorns on the stem of this flowering plant (in the photo above). Or, this enormous clump of grass (in the photo below).

(I didn’t crop the picket fence out of the photo so that you would have a sense for how tall and wide this planting is.)

Every size and shape of house had equally representation. What they all seemed to have in common and share were the use of bright colours, shutters and house names, instead of house numbers.

Lets have a look...

This gem, has a Buddha on its first set of stairs which holds space on its landing. You can feel the serenity as it encourages you to breathe a little deeper.