“Welcome home,” John says to me with a smile. This is just my second time staying here at the hotel John Leone owns, the Seaview Beach Hotel in Philipsburg, Sint Maarten. But even after four nights on my last trip, it did feel like home, and checking in, being greeted like this, does indeed have that same coming home feeling of comfort and familiarity.
But even a mere nine months later, the place is different. Yes, it’s the same amazing location on the Philipsburg beach boardwalk, the same incredible view of the turquoise sea out of my window, the same warmth and hospitality. But the room is a bit different, done in new designs of blues with a piece of a poem John wrote.
“Relax your Soul in a Thousand Shades of Blue… That’s what the Seaview can do for you…”
The poem is all John (and I buy a book of his poetry from the attached cafe before I leave, a perfect present for a close friend). The art, however, is the result of Seaview’s first ever artist in residence, Tes Verheij. Between the new rooms, the stunning artwork up all over the property, and Seaview’s position at the center of the Philipsburg Art Walk, if you are someone who appreciates beauty, this is the place for you!
Tes is a former art teacher here on the island. After losing her studio in Hurricane Irma in 2017, she focused on beautification efforts as part of the rebuilding of Philipsburg. One of the results is the Philipsburg Art Walk, a series of now close to 30 murals in the alleys of the beachfront capital.
From celebrations of local celebrities to seascapes and other island scenes, the murals are diverse, both in subject and appearance as well as style, with a number of local artists being commissioned.
Tes, of course, has a mural as part of the Philipsburg Art Walk, an island scene popular with Instagrammers posing in wings.
Walking me past many of the scenes, Tes comments that one of the most positive side effects of the project is that it has inspired other local businesses to install murals on their own walls. Beauty attracts beauty, and nobody wants to be left out.
One such beautiful mural is at the Seaview itself, where the boardwalk-facing infinity pool has what has now become the hotel’s logo, done in almost as many shades of blue as John’s poem, which is written on the wall next to it.
Both before our walk and after, Tes and I sit down in the hotel’s lobby with John. To say the man is excited and proud about his business would be an understatement. And he has every reason to be. Forgetting for a moment (even though you should never forget) the incredible service culture John has built here that I can personally attest to, the place is beautiful. And that beauty is simply because John cares to have it. Most hotels would be – and are – just fine with nondescript rooms, poster art, and tacky wallpaper. People expect that, and nobody would complain.
So what he has done here at the Seaview Beach Hotel, hiring an artist in residence to add beauty, is just for the purpose of the art. It is for the sake of that beauty itself. It is only because he, a transplant to this island as an adult, believes so much in not only his business but its place in the fabric of Philipsburg and Sint Maarten as a whole that he wants to do whatever he can to make it better, and to showcase the amazing people of his adopted home.
Over the course of my five days at the Seaview, I have the chance to not only appreciate the beauty Tes has added to my room, but also the incredible works she has added to basically every public wall on the property. From animals done in bright colors to sunset scenes with sand added, her work is so vibrant that it can actually compete with the colors of the Caribbean outside.
And the blues of John’s poetry have even inspired her to do a series of paintings on Delft ceramic, and I purchase a tile to bring home. (Purely coincidentally, on my last trip I had purchased a small piece of Tes’ sand art. I hadn’t met her yet. I was just so taken by the sand art, and it still reminds me of that first visit every time I see it, bringing a smile to my face. So will this new one.)
I ask John what is next for the Seaview Beach Hotel and for his artist in residence program. He tells me that sadly, Tes is moving back to Europe, and will have by the time this article is published. He says that the work they have begun together won’t end. Some rooms, after all, have yet to become inhabitable artworks like mine is. Will there be another artist in residence? He says there probably will be, but he is not committing just yet. What is for sure is that those rooms that haven’t had new art will get it, but what form it takes is still to be determined.
But his commitment to local artists, he says, will only increase. Already his attached cafes (the best iced coffee on the island, in my opinion) and marketplace sell not only Tes’ work, but that of other local artists. He wants to make sure that the Seaview is a place that welcomes that, and allows for the artists on the island to make a living creating beauty without having to move to do so.
A thousand shade of blue, John writes. Yes, there are those here at the Seaview Beach Hotel, and all up and down the Philipsburg Art Walk. But there is so much more. With the hotel at its center, this has become a haven for artists working the entire spectrum, using John’s blues as well as vivid island colors, Tes’ bright glass-infused paints as well as the pastels of Sint Maarten’s sunsets.
I lie back on my bed at the Seaview, my gaze alternating between the Caribbean out the window and counting the blues on the interior walls. I am proud to call this place my home here in Sint Maarten, and proud of my friends John and Tes for adding beauty to it, just for the sake of that creation. I can’t wait to see what comes next.
Thank you to John Leone and Seaview Beach Hotel for being my home on both (so far) of my Sint Maarten trips. And thank you to Visit Sint Maarten for hosting my trip!
Like it? Pin it!
