TURKS AND CAICOS - Meet Katrina Birt, the tour de force behind the stately and historic Grand Turk Inn. This landmark ocean-front inn was lovingly restored and jointly run by Katrina and her sister until Sandy recently passed away. I marveled at how two sisters from Australia found themselves owning and operating an inn in the Turks and Caicos Islands. Katrina laughed as she recalled their circuitous route from Brisbane to Grand Turk. “Our lives were always exciting, and fate was good to us,” she says, adding that she and Sandy drew from their experiences along the way in renovating the inn and creating the charming suites where guests immediately feel at home.

Katrina’s first exposure to the tourism business came when her family moved from Brisbane to Surfers Paradise fifty miles away. She and Sandy started water skiing and performing in a ski show. Scouts spotted 19-year-old Sandy and brought her to the USA to become a performance water skier in Cypress Gardens world famous Water Ski Capitol of the World Show. A year later, 14-year-old Katrina and her mother followed.

Eventually Katrina’s mom and sister moved to New York where they became secretaries at the United Nations. Katrina finished secondary school in Manhattan, spending her summers water skiing in The Tommy Bartlett Water Ski Show on Lake Delton in Wisconsin. Meanwhile Sandy had become a baroness, having married an Austrian baron.

Back in New York, Katrina became a Vera Maxwell fashion model during the sixties heyday of the designer’s classic styles. Subsequently Katrina landed a modeling job with the David Howard Climax company. She recalls that Vanna White wore their evening gowns.

Katrina enjoyed being a showroom model until her boss suggested she go into sales. “I was terrified because I thought I was too shy,” she says. Nevertheless, her boss insisted she try sales, and, to her surprise, she loved it. Part of the challenge of working in the New York City garment center at that time was that the business was male-dominated. “I definitely stood out from the average Jewish guy in the garment center,” she says, her blue eyes twinkling and her reddish golden hair glistening in the sunlight. “I enjoy people,” she adds, “and people were fascinated with my being an Australian. I was a novelty.” During this time, she married, and eventually she worked her way up to company vice-president.

Sandy was living in London and Vienna then, so Katrina decided to take time off from the garment center to visit her in London. “While there, I met people from Switzerland who invited me to visit them in the tourist town of Zermatt, halfway up the Matterhorn,” she recalls. So when she returned to New York, she arranged for a visa, then flew to Switzerland where her new friends offered her a job.

“I was never a winter person, but they had a job for me at Simi’s restaurant,” Katrina says. “I was scared of heights, but every day I took the cable car to work. I would sled home in the evening.” One night King Gustaf from Sweden dined at Simi’s and asked if Katrina and another employee could yodel for him, but of course the Manhattanites couldn’t! Nevertheless King Gustaf invited Katrina, the cook and the Swiss owner back to his place, so the baroness’ sister was able to boast that she had been the guest of a king!

Both sisters found themselves single in the nineties, so they opened a clothing boutique where they also sold gift items. Then came a career-altering phone call from Sandy who had been vacationing in Key West. “She asked if I’d consider moving,” Katrina recalls, “and of course I said no. But I traveled down anyway to see this gorgeous place Sandy was raving about, and I loved it.” The sisters immediately put their heads together to figure out what a well-traveled combination baroness housewife and garment center executive could do on Key West, a 5.27 square mile island.

Several years prior, the heir to the Packard motor car family estate decided to sell off the guest houses on the property, keeping for himself the main house on the water where various celebrities had stayed, including former President Richard Nixon. The buyer constructed a house and used the guest houses as long-term rentals.

Enter fate. The buyer decided to sell, so the property was again on the market. After viewing the cottages, the sisters concluded that not much had been done since Nixon’s long-ago visit. However, Katrina and Sandy thought that maybe they could turn the six guest houses and pool into a bed and breakfast, so they purchased the property. They remodeled the guest houses and built four more, some small, some two-story, and turned them into tourist rentals. They paid the Key West mortgage working seven-day weeks for eleven years.

Enter fate again. A major hotel chain approached Sandy and Katrina about buying the Key West property. “We were stunned,” Katrina says, “and wondered what we would do if we sold.” Word spread, more offers were made, and they finally sold.

Enter fate yet again. Katrina happened to see an article in the Miami Herald about Turks and Caicos Islands, a small country and stable British Overseas Territory. With her Australian passport, Katrina flew to TCI on an exploratory mission to look at houses.

“Providenciales was lovely but too Key West for us—too crowded commercially and just too busy,” she recalls. Next she visited North Caicos and found just the opposite. Then she landed in Grand Turk and fell in love with the island.

Katrina stayed at Manta House on Duke Street, just down from the present Grand Turk Inn. She was dining one evening at a former restaurant on the water’s edge when the owner asked what she was doing in Grand Turk. “When I told him I was thinking of moving here, he said he knew a house that was for sale,” she says. It turned out the house had been empty for ten years and was run down and in need of major work, but it was right on the water. “You have to be able to see past the dilapidation to what can be,” she says, smiling.” So even though she was sure Sandy would think she’d lost her mind since the house really was in terrible shape, Katrina took photos and flew back to Key West.

Sandy was intrigued. She flew to Grand Turk, saw the property and loved it,. So they purchased the home, planning to build two cottages for tourists on the property similar to what they had done in Key West.. They then returned to Key West to pack up their belongings. Because they couldn’t bear to leave their pet dogs, cats and birds behind, they rented a plane and flew directly into Grand Turk’s old airport. “I’m afraid when we arrived with our menagerie and belongings, it must have looked like the Beverly Hillbillies had hit Grand Turk!” Katrina laughs. “The plane was packed. We’d shipped two forty-foot containers filled with furniture, antiques, our big navy-blue Viking stove, toilets—everything we thought we’d need, including our Jeep Wrangler.”

She and Sandy moved into the wrecked house and slept on inflatable mattresses for four weeks waiting for the containers to clear Customs. “Actually,” Katrina recalls, “I only slept on the inflatable for a night since the cats were in my room, and the mattresses quickly went flat.”

Before the sisters could begin work on the guest houses, fate intervened once again. On their daily walk along Front Street to collect their mail at the post office, Katrina and Sandy passed a beautiful historic building that overlooked the turquoise Caribbean and appeared to be unoccupied. Katrina inquired about the building from the friend who had told her about their home. He said the building had been confiscated by the government.

Six months later the friend called Katrina. “He told me that the building I loved was going to be sold, and that the Canadian owner was in town to sell it. So we made an appointment to see the property the next day.”

To their disappointment, the sisters found that in the 1950s the interior had been converted to offices, so fluorescent tubes lined the ceilings. Still, they could envision the possibilities, so they decided not to build cottages but to buy and renovate what 150 years ago was originally the Methodist Manse. They bought the property the next day.

Katrina flew to Miami and in just six days bought everything they needed for the renovation: stoves, refrigerators, toilets, mattresses, drapes, and a sander to restore the floors which were currently all tile. She bought so much that she even had a personal shopper at Home Depot!

Within seven months the former office space was transformed into the Grand Turk Inn, fully restored to its 19th century charm. Having read Herman Wouk’s Don’t Stop the Carnival, I was astounded and asked how they had managed to get workers to do the job so quickly.

“We just kept after people all the time, “ Katrina says. “And we were determined. The inn was ideal for us since it allowed us to have our freedom and a business. I suppose my being a people person helped, since throughout my life I’d enjoyed meeting different interesting people.”

Finally, fate dealt a devastating blow. On 6 September 2008, Hurricane Ike roared through the Turks and Caicos Islands, trailing an horrific path of destruction.. Because Sandy and Katrina had just put a new eighty-thousand dollar roof on the inn, they decided that the inn was the safest place to be during the hurricane. Sandy stayed in the Dolphin suite on the first floor with the dogs, while Katrina stayed on the second floor with the cats..

“We’d been through devastating hurricanes in Key West,” Katrina says, “but we were never really scared. We knew what precautions to take, like putting up shutters and stocking up on food.” At 9:00 p.m. when they went to bed, they felt that the predicted hurricane was no big deal. “Then, in the middle of the night, around 2:00 a.m., the windows exploded. Metal siding panels from the bank across the way hit the upstairs windows, blowing out all the shutters and glass,” Katrina recalls. “Glass was everywhere, and my ears were clicking from the pressure.”

She raced downstairs to Sandy, and then remembered that she had locked the cats in the upstairs bathroom. So they hurried back upstairs to find that the bedroom door had slammed shut. Together they struggled against the wind to push the door open. When they finally succeeded, they found that a heavy armoire had been blown across room. The roaring wind was frightening, and the loud ticking was terrifying. They brought the cats to the first floor which was good because before the night was over, both upper units were blown out.

Water from upstairs was coming down in the living room and in the bedroom onto the bed. Katrina and Sandy found a dry section on the living room floor and lay down to wait out the hurricane. Meanwhile, the bathroom ceiling started falling in. Somehow they got through the night.

In the morning they ventured outside to discover that not one piece of green remained anywhere on the island—not a leaf. The devastation reminded Katrina of Hiroshima pictures. Roofing was everywhere, and metal siding from the bank covered the ground on Front Street and around the inn. A half-dozen all-glass Christmas bulbs scattered along the walkway in front of the inn miraculously remained intact! Ironically, their little home on Duke Street lost only one small piece of roofing.

Undaunted, Sandy and Katrina tackled restoring the inn. The place was flooded, and the floor boards were warped, so they replaced the wood and brought the floors back to life. The thick walls had withstood the storm well, but the dry wall was ruined by the water and had to be redone. They installed hurricane-proof glass windows throughout the house. Before long the suites were refurbished and the inn was again ready to welcome guests.

The Grand Turk Inn provides discriminating travelers with spacious suites that transport one back to the charm of the 19th century without sacrificing the amenities of the 21st century. All rooms are well-appointed with kitchens, comfortable living and bedrooms, and large baths. Several rooms overlook the ocean, and the beach is just across the quiet, one-lane street. Full breakfasts are served in guests’ rooms at their convenience. Snorkel gear, beach towels, etc. are available at no charge, as are bicycles. An assortment of books and games fill shelves in the reception area. Guests are free to enjoy the sundeck and breezeway, and throughout there is complimentary wi-fi. Katrina and caretaker Donovan are happy to accommodate guests to ensure that their stay at the Grand Turk Inn exceeds expectation.

Grand Turk Inn, Front Street, Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos Islands, BWI Rates: No children under 16. US$250 summer, $300 winter/couple/night. Full breakfast inc.

www.grandturkinn.com Tel: 649-946-2827