March 2017 | Business View Caribbean

50 51 The Coconut Court Beach Hotel and James, constructed eighteen reef balls and sunk them in the lagoon to create a home for small reef fish that would oth- erwise be displaced from their reef due to coral damage, overfishing, and other detri- mental environmental factors. Over the past seventeen years, these reef balls became home to hundreds of fish and they provide an exciting snorkeling experience for our hotel guests,” Lampkin reports. Since the beach is also home to the nesting Hawks- bill sea turtles from June to November, the beach is raked daily, by hand. No automated tractors are used to destroy or disturb the beach environment. Coconut Court stays open year round. “We don’t close unless we have to do major renovations,” says Lampkin. The last closure was in 2015. “This was the final phase of our extensive, five-year ren- ovation plan which saw the complete refurbishment of 75 of our hotel rooms.” Several of the roofs were also replaced at that time to facilitate the installation of new, state-of- the-art, commercial solar water and photovoltaic systems. “Coconut Court proudly generates 100 percent of its own hot water for guest rooms and service areas and approximately 35 percent of its own elec- tricity,” Lampkin says. Lampkin adds that the hotel has been fo- cusing on “green” initiatives for several years. “’We’ve done quite a bit of restructuring to our property to make it more environmen- tally-friendly,” she asserts. “In addition to the photo-voltaic system and the two commercial hot water systems that we installed in 2015, we also have constructed a 50,000 gallon rain- water reservoir beneath the car park which is used to flush toilets and irrigate some of the hotel gardens.” Other initiatives include low- flush toilets and LED lighting. “We installed PTAC (Packaged Terminal Air Conditioner) air conditioning units in all of our renovated guest rooms.We are the second hotel on the island to use these units. A standard commercial air con- ditioning unit uses between 20 and 24 amps of electricity, whereas the PTAC unit uses less than five amps of electricity. This is a significant difference.” Laminated glass was installed in all of the renovated guest rooms. This laminated glass is 75-90 percent stronger than regular glass and if broken, the glass will fragment but remain intact. “The laminated doors and windows reduce noise, keep the room cooler and provide additional safety in the event of a mark blades, jason lampkin and linda lampkin linda lampkin and charlie blades