The Chattel Houses of Barbados

Interspersed along the coast and found on roads great and small throughout Barbados are small wooden houses called chattel houses. Perhaps because I make my living in real estate I find the concept of a house as personal property rather than real property to be fascinating. The word “chattel” is a derivation of “cattle,” an early form of property. A chattel house is a mobile home of yore.

What first piqued my interest in chattel houses was the view of Barbados’s West Coast from a catamaran. Known as the Platinum Coast, because of the luxurious homes there that sell there for $50 million or more, the view from my catamaran included these mansions as well as more modest ramshackle structures on incredibly valuable pieces of land.

Digging deeper I found that the reason that some of the land lots upon which the chattel houses sit have not been purchased for mansions is because no chain of title can be proven. There are many stories on Barbados of five different individuals claiming ownership based on squatters rights or a claim that his or her family lived on the land for decades some time back between England’s colonization of Barbados and today. I heard of a man who collected rent on a property for five years that he never owned but spun a convincing tale to reel in an unsuspecting tenant!

All of this confusion dates back to the plantation days of Barbados beginning in 1625 when the first English ship arrived and claimed the island for King James I. In a twist of fate, the wealthy colonizers built their sugar cane plantations on the hill to capture the breeze and avoid the mosquitoes that bred along the coast. The enslaved workers were banished to the then less desirable oceanfront property, owned by their “employers.” Never sure how the landlord/tenant situation would work out, these slaves built their houses so they could be taken apart and moved quickly. Traditional chattel houses are built entirely without nails and set on cinderblocks (formerly rocks) for easy disassembly.

While some form of movable house exists throughout the Caribbean, the chattel house is truly a Bajan invention. Today they are often painted in gorgeous colors from the turquoise of the sea to the orangey-red of a ripe tomato. As homeowners tend to improve their dwellings over time, the chattel houses have been added to over the years and boast lovely fretwork, jalousies, and white picket fences. Some have been moved into a Chattel Village and turned into trendy boutiques. To me, at least, they are picturesque and are one of those uniquely Bajan traits that make me love Barbados as I do.

I’ve been living on Barbados since early January 2012 working on a super-luxury project called One Sandy Lane (www.onesandylane.com). Lucky me.

Thanks for reading!

[ If you enjoyed reading this please check out my novels Sugar Tower, The Secret Life of Sandrina M., and Make Me an Offer at www.amazon.com. Can also be downloaded on any eReader)]