The elegant and serene Villa Renaissance luxury boutique resort in the Turks and Caicos Islands is located on 250 feet of white sand beachfront on Grace Bay Beach. The welcoming reception pavilion features covered walkways that lead to the pool. A boardwalk, accessed from its open archway, leads to beautiful beach. It is a tropical paradise, now shimmering and shining with a gorgeous exterior coating, which is not only aesthetically beautiful, it’s extremely easy to maintain and keep clean.

General Manager Stephen Flowers wanted to think of ways to make the resort stand out and look fresh and new. The ownership wanted to update an existing coral render façade without the expense of a topcoat, and for it to stand up in a prime location on the beach.

“We called Wall Tech Construction to come out and take a look at our reception building in 2018, and they suggested as a facelift we should apply a new finish to our existing façade which was faded, no longer waterproof and generally looked old and tired,” said Flowers.

The plan started out with a full render system and ended up with new biomimetic coating from Sto Corp. To get the facelift look and to keep the resort looking clean and bright, they chose StoColor Dryonic exterior coating, which creates a fast-drying surface that provides long-term moisture protection for virtually any substrate. The exterior coating, part of the Sto Intelligent Technology + Design (iQ) coatings program (also referred to as iQ Technology), offers a wide range of design possibilities as well as optimum durability, color stability and sustainability.

In addition, Stolit 3.0 was used on all existing coral render. The product is a ready-mixed, acrylic-based, premium exterior or interior textured wall finish, enhanced with Sto Optilink advanced polymer technology from Sto. It’s used as a decorative and protective wall finish over prepared concrete, masonry and plaster substrates, and Sto claddings. They wanted to keep the look of a coral render, replicating coral stone to go with the Caribbean style of the resort and island. The only issue with a coral render is that its rough surface tends to get really dirty due to moisture collecting on the surface capturing airborne dirt and providing nutrients for mold and mildew growth.

The contractors on the project were no strangers to the product, as they’ve used it on their own home.

“We first used the product on a house we were renting in the area,” said Emma Watkin, co-owner of Wall Tech Construction, both the contractor and applicator on the project. “We knew Efrain Malave with Sto Corp. and talked to him and our landlord about it. It was awesome, so we started using it on work projects as a more cost-effective solution for people. It’s the perfect coating for this island climate.”

Both Phases

The property owners talked about freshening up the buildings for three years, and once they came up with the solution, it was completed quickly, even while dealing with some horrendous weather during hurricane season, according to Watkin. They began the project with some patching of the previous rendered finish prior to recoating. The first year they recoated the reception building, which was Phase 1. The owner performed maintenance on it after a year and was amazed at how it cleans right off.

“During the application of Phase 2 we decided to clean the reception building, which had been completed the previous year,” said Flowers. “We found that a soft brush and warm water removed all the marks on the walls and it literally looks like new, despite suitcases being dragged along the walls, dirty feet and general dirt from the dusty atmosphere here.”

In Phase 2 they completed the two garden villas, which are poolside cottages with four apartments in each, and the main oceanfront suites, with 28 apartments on the beach. For the villas’ and oceanfront suites’ color they called upon the experts at Sto Studio, a unique service assisting in the architectural design process, to come up with a slightly different shade. They collaborated with the team to create a complete façade concept, which included color and material options.

“Phase 2 was completed within the five-week timeline and the building simply glows,” said Flowers. “We also had to patch in a few areas due to repairs, which has also blended in seamlessly with the previous application. I would recommend this coating all day long for any new work or refurbishment.”

And it withstands any kind of weather, even severe Turks and Caicos Islands’ weather.

“When it rains here in TCI, it really rains,” said Flowers. “All of the buildings around us are saturated for hours, but within literally 15 seconds the building seems to be dry; you would never even know it has rained.”