This article originally appeared in the September 2021 issue of Penta magazine - you can read it here.read it here.
For a while during the pandemic, Boston-based tech executive Corey McCann’s dinner depended on whatever he managed to catch while spearfishing. McCann wasn’t stranded on a deserted island in the middle of the ocean, he simply chose to live off the grid in a luxurious modern villa at Costa Elena in Costa Rica.
“Before Covid-19 hit, I would travel weekly between San Francisco and Boston and spend 20 to 25 days every month away from home,” McCann says. “My partner and I decided to use the pandemic as a reason to explore remote places and try out a new lifestyle.”
While McCann’s ability to adopt a remote yet luxurious lifestyle during the pandemic is uncommon, his instinct was shared by many Americans. People who could afford to leave cities left for beach towns, mountain resorts, and lakes where they could spend time outdoors and away from potential exposure to the virus.
Nearly half of Americans (48%) polled by Gallup at the end of 2020 said they would choose to live in a small town (17%) or a rural area (31%) rather than a city or suburb. Gallup’s 2018 poll found only 39% of Americans wanted to live in a small town or rural area.
In December 2020, McCann, and his partner were in Costa Rica to hunt yellowfin tuna, and ended up at Costa Elena, where they had rented places a couple of times. “We decided to buy here because we both love modern design and the proximity to nature,” he says.
McCann’s home is one of eight bay villas at Las Mareas at Costa Elena, a four-bedroom, five-bathroom home with a separate guesthouse and views of Salinas Bay, Orosi Volcano, and Bolaños Island. While he declined to share his villa’s price, a similar villa is listed now for $1.45 million.
“One of our big requirements was to have bulletproof Wi-Fi because we need to be on Zoom meetings all day,” McCann says. Other infrastructure requirements for McCann included a generator and battery backup for routers and for power surges, he says.
“This place is rugged and feels off the grid, yet it’s easy to access because the airport is 90 minutes away and has direct flights to Boston and San Francisco.”
From Suburbia to the Mountains
While about 50 million more rounds of golf were played in 2020 compared with 2019, both mountain communities and golf course communities drew new residents looking for privacy.
For Kent Rounds, a vice president at CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm, an escape to Idaho was exactly what he and his wife, Simone Rounds, 34, and their 6-month-old daughter needed to breathe more easily during the pandemic. The Roundses’ permanent home is in Creighton Farms in Loudoun County, Va., outside of Washington, D.C.
“I’d been skiing in Idaho before and was looking for a mountain area where we could stay during the pandemic,” says Rounds, 60. “I saw Tributary online and bought a place sight unseen because it was exactly what I had in mind. The house sits on a half-acre and faces the Teton Mountains and the golf course for unobstructed views.”
Tributary, a low-density community in Driggs, Idaho, offers the remote feeling and privacy the Roundses want. It also includes a spa, a pool, ice skating, and a ski lounge if they want to socialize. The community is about 45 miles from the Jackson, Wyo., airport.
The couple spent $2.5 million on their four-bedroom, 3,900-square-foot home, and plan to split their time between Idaho and Virginia.
An Extended Stay in Paradise
Hawaii’s travel restrictions kept some tourists from the islands during the pandemic, but others took the opportunity to put down permanent roots there.
Beth and Quentin Gillette, owners of PowerGrid Services, a Decatur, Ala.-based company that maintains power lines, vacationed at the resort community of Kukui’ula on the island of Kauai for more than a decade but it took a pandemic to get them to buy a home there.
“We love staying fit, hiking, and biking. There’s an organic farm in the community where we can pick vegetables, herbs, and fruit and we overlook an orchard,” Beth says.
Their home, named Hale Nanea and designed by architect Olson Kundig, has panoramic ocean views.
“It feels like we’re living in a treehouse,” Beth says.
The Gillettes —she’s 57, he’s 55—were able to run their business via videoconferencing and the occasionally sporadic internet, although the time difference was sometimes frustrating. They plan to spend more time in Hawaii in the future despite the challenge of getting to Kukui’ula from Alabama, which can take as long as 16 to 18 hours of multiple flights. Homes at Kukui’ula range in price from $2 million to more than $5 million.
“The beauty of this place is that it’s a complete 180-degrees from Alabama,” Beth says.
