Modern
Modern on St. John and St. Thomas usually means a house that has given up most of its walls. When we look through a house's photographs for this list, we look for a living room that opens on two or three sides, a deck that runs level from the kitchen floor, and a structure of concrete, steel or hardwood with the glass doing the rest. A house qualifies whether it was built new or taken back to the frame and rebuilt around the view. We pick each one by eye, never from a word in the listing, because modern in a listing can mean a new kitchen in an old house.
This is a week for people who like a room to be quiet: one long space, the view framed in glass, little on the walls to compete with it. The climate asks more of it. Glass takes the afternoon sun and the salt spray, an open plan has no closed room to retreat to when the breeze drops, and every large pane needs a plan for a storm. Four questions to the owner tell a house built for August from one that only photographs well in March.
Written by Virgin Islands Villas · Updated Oct 2026 · How this was checked
How a house gets on this list
- Picked by hand by us: no amenity, rate or bedroom count puts a house here
- On any island the site covers
- The villa's page is live on this site
What to ask the owner about a glass house
How the glass is protected in a storm: impact-rated panes, roll-down shutters, or panels someone fits by hand, and who fits them if a storm is forecast during your stay. Which rooms have air conditioning, and whether the living space can be closed and cooled or is open to the deck by design. Which way the main glass faces, since a west wall takes the low sun from mid-afternoon to dusk. And how the sliding doors run: on a house facing the sea, the tracks gather salt and sand, and a door that sticks is a door that stays shut.
An owner who answers all four in one reply has lived through a storm season in the house. One who sends only more photographs has not.
Questions about Modern
Are modern villas hotter than older Caribbean houses?
They can be, in the afternoon. Large panes let in sun that a stone wall or a louvered shutter would block, and an open plan depends on the breeze to keep it comfortable. The difference is in the details: deep overhangs, glass that faces north or east, and air conditioning in the bedrooms. The listing's amenities say which rooms are cooled. For the shuttered, porch-and-louver way of building, see Caribbean classic.
What happens to a house with this much glass in hurricane season?
The Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30, per NOAA's National Hurricane Center as of October 2026, and a contemporary house has more glass to protect than most. Ask the owner whether the panes are impact-rated or shuttered, who closes the house if a storm is forecast, and what their cancellation terms say about a named storm. Our hurricane season guide covers the months that carry most of the risk.
Facts checked against National Hurricane Center. Checked October 2026.
