Love At First Sight

I will never forget the moment I first set eyes on the beautiful island of Roatan in the Bay islands of Honduras. It was September 6th 2006 and I had spent the morning working outside on our California ranch riding and exercising our horses.

Working with horses can be pretty tiring so I promised myself a little R&R when I was finished. I had just come into the house to relax a bit and watch television when I happened to scan through the channels and saw a few people sitting in a boat on what had to be the most beautiful blue ocean I had ever seen.

It turns out that the show I stumbled upon was called House Hunters International on HGTV. In my work as a Real Estate Broker in Los Angeles, I was used to spending hours in traffic on the freeways each and every week taking clients from one neighborhood to the other in hopes that they might see something that they absolutely must have. As I settled in to watch the show I took one look at the Real Estate agent sunning himself in the boat with his client’s and I said out loud, “Where does this guy work that he gets to show houses from a boat? I wanna be that guy”. It was at that moment that my life became completely transformed.

It turns out that the show was featuring a couple looking to buy a home on the island of Roatan in the Bay Islands of Honduras. Now, I have traveled many places in the world but I was not familiar with the Bay Islands and I had never heard of this place called Roatan so while I was watching the show I got out my lap top computer and pulled up the website for the agent and the company that he worked for called Roatan Realty. When the show was over I sent the agent an email asking for more information about the beautiful island that I had just seen on T.V. That night I tried to sleep soundly but all I could do was think about Roatan.

The next day when I arrived at my office my assistant had already gone to my website and downloaded my mornings email for me to review. There about midway through the emails was a response from the Realtor offering to answer any questions that I might have. During the next two weeks my wife and I began researching everything we could about Roatan and the Bay Islands. I telephoned random businesses and spoke to the sales clerks, I called homeowners who were renting out their homes to vacationers and I read everything I could about the islands.

One night after dinner Margie (my wife) and I sat down on the couch as we had done nearly every night since seeing the show and we started looking through various Real Estate websites. Within minutes we saw a home come across the screen that we had seen pop up at least twenty times before. It was then that Margie casually said “you know if we were to buy a house instead of vacant land I think this would be the one to buy”. Needless to say my mind started racing and I thought to myself. Buy? Who said anything about buying a house?

Trying to play it cool I said, well we could always make an offer. The worst that could happen is they would say no. I was certain they would say no. Guess what? They didn’t say no and we opened escrow on September 21, 2006 which was exactly fifteen days after I saw the agent sunning himself in the boat. I had never been to Honduras and I still had no clear idea where Roatan was. The adventure began and I began to fall in love with the idea of making this work. We scheduled a trip to Roatan over the New Years Holiday and began the process of re-financing our home.

On January 2nd 2007 we closed escrow on “Casa Can Do” and life has never been the same. I spent about one week a month on Roatan remodeling the house as Margie had given me carte blanche to create a Caribbean dream for her. During the remodel process and while spending time on Roatan I had befriended the owners of of Roatan Realty. One day in June of 2007 I received a call that set another set of events in motion when I was asked if I would be interested in purchasing the Real Estate company. After weeks of discussion I made an offer on the company on September 21, 2007 which was exactly one year to the day that I made the offer on our house. I thought for certain that they would say no. Guess what? They didn’t say no.
They said yes and six weeks later I was the proud owner of Roatan Realty.

I took over the company on November 1, 2007 and my wife and I are now living on the island in her Caribbean dream home full time and loving it. The other day I was heading out of the office to go show a home on a little private island. I was to meet a friend as he has a boat and that was the only way to get there. My wife stopped me as I was leaving and said to me, do you remember what you said when you saw the agent showing houses from a boat? You said “I wanna be that guy”. We looked at each other for a moment and smiled as we replayed all that we had done during the past year and realized how much our lives had changed.

No more traffic jams and smoggy freeways. No more trying to keep up with the rat race and the high stress of city life. Now we walk on the beach every evening with our dogs, pick bananas off of our trees for breakfast and let the sound of the ocean carry us off to sleep each night. We truly have fallen in love with Roatan and the Bay Islands and there are moments when we are walking down the beach and we do not see another person for one mile in either direction. It is at that moment that we just stop and laugh at how life has unfolded.

The other day Margie walked through the family room as I was watching a show on the adventure channel about a couple who decided to sail and backpack around the world. She ran across the room and quickly turned off the T.V and looked me square in the eye and said

“Oh no you don’t. Don’t even think about it.