Tony and Nancy Ayer, authors of “Estate Mount Washington – the Discovery and Resurrection of a Lost Plantation,” will sign and discuss their book from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Friday at Undercover Books & Gifts in Gallows Bay.
A second signing and discussion is scheduled for 4 p.m. Feb. 23 at the Caribbean Museum Center for the Arts, Frederiksted.
Tony Ayer grew up on St. Croix and returned after college graduation. Nancy Ayer knew nothing about the island before moving there. In 1984 they were investors in a developing resort and discovered they were the last two remaining who were interested in a “white elephant” tucked away in the rain forest.
Their book embodies the glorious stone remains of a magnificent estate – the discovery and resurrection of a lost plantation.
The dominant features were the three-story stone sugar factory-warehouse, rum distillery and attached dungeons. The one-story burning shed for bagasse was adjacent. The boiling room and sugarcane mill were nearby. Stables and plantation cottages emerged from the jungle brush … and finally, the two-story great house appeared from possibly a century of a tropical rainforest takeover.
“All of this goes beyond Tony and Nancy. We are most proud that St. Croix has one of the oldest plantations in the United States. That’s a pretty big deal,” Nancy said.
“Not many know the history of the Virgin Islands. I didn’t know of it as a child.”
The family made the decision to create a home with the comforts of the present day without compromising the original historic structures. Nancy furnished their home with West Indian mahogany furniture from the antique shop she ran and created from the former stables.
Estate Mount Washington is a beautiful blend of the historic and the spiritual, Nancy said. Some don’t “get” the idea of the labyrinth, she said, but that’s OK.
“It brings a lot of peace to those who come and to see it and walk it,” she said.
Nancy created the labyrinth and thinks of it as her crowning project at Mount Washington.
The Ayers did a large amount of research about the people who lived and worked on the estate. They used census and tax reports from Danish Colonial records for information concerning their places of birth, jobs, religions and other information.
The issue of slavery was important to the Ayers in bringing their discovery to light. When most of the restorations of Mount Washington were completed in 1990, their sensitivity was noted and later juxtaposed to the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. with their opening in 2016.
“To visit Estate Mount Washington is to visit the history of our islands,” Nancy said. It is open to the public to see in all of its historic beauty – the sugar ruins, the rum factory, the labyrinth, the stable, and the dungeons – free of charge.
While the great house is closed to the public, it is available for U.S. Virgin Islands’ charity benefits.
“The book is about celebrating the roots of our culture. It’s honoring the past and knowing who you are and where you come from,” Nancy said.