About
Villa Sud

I live in Michigan: acceptable-to-glorious April through October, charming around the fireplace Thanksgiving through Christmas, then suicidally hideous until April. Toes aching from the cold floor, looking out the window at the bare trees stuck in the mud on yet another gray January afternoon, I envy the damned geese, decamped long ago. Hummingbirds fly hundreds of miles, Arctic terns thousands. Bears and raccoons at least have the common sense to sleep through it. Me and the crows hang around, them picking at frozen road kill, me my teeth. The other side of an acceptable airplane ride, tomorrow, hummingbirds and geese a clue, I’m strolling through greenery with the sunshine on my shoulders. As is proper.

Thrashing around on AirBnB again, I noticed that many of the bigger, fancier places — the sorts of villas and mansions with 10+ bedrooms — are offered for longer-term rentals at very attractive per-person or -room rates — much lower than smaller places, or, often, normal hotels and resorts (yuck) — if one were able, somehow, to gather a gang and fill them up. Hmm. This is especially true for certain areas (like southern France) which are considered off-season in the winter but where lots of sunshine and 50–60 degree days would be just fine for us northerners, thank you. Five hundred bucks for an entire month in a nice room in a beautiful old place overlooking the sea where, every day, you can walk down to the market in nothing more than a light jacket? Yeah — might work.

Or, rather… it might work if you can recruit others to join, because you’re not going to shell out $18K for the month all by yourself. It can be a challenge to gather gangs and facilitate a pop-up co-living thing. Thus: Villa Sud! I hope to use it to recruit for winter, 2027, and in the future, it may be something other people could use. If you’re interested in joining, or just want to talk it through, I’d love to hear from you.