Springfield Today

5 November 2026

Guest Bedrooms Taking Shape

Up under the roof, two bedrooms are nearly ready. Fresh cream walls and white beams, dark green floors, and simple wooden beds waiting for their mattresses, which are on order. Paintings will go up on the walls next. One room opens onto the green outside.

Another step in bringing Springfield back to life, for the people who will come to stay.

An attic bedroom with cream boarded walls, white sloping beams and a dark green floor, two wooden single beds, a small desk and an open door onto greenery

A long attic bedroom under white roof beams, with cream boarded walls, a dark green floor and three wooden single bed frames

5 November 2026

Rebuilding the Room Above the Kitchen

Hurricane Maria destroyed the upper floor above Springfield's kitchen, and with it went any way to keep the rain from falling inside. To bring the kitchen back into working order, the space above it had to be closed in again.

So the room above the kitchen is being rebuilt. New walls are going up to hold a new roof, fresh boards are being laid among the old ones, and new railings are taking shape along the open side. In time the room may become a conference room or an apartment. First, it will keep the kitchen below dry.

Photographed at first light this morning.

The Springfield courtyard at dawn, with white wooden buildings, green shutters and royal palms, and a pile of gravel in the foreground — Gravel and sand piled in the courtyard at first light.

A cement mixer in a covered passage with a green-painted floor — The cement mixer, parked in the covered passage below.

Upstairs, old panelled doors lean against the wall beside new floorboards, sawhorses and a new block wall — Upstairs: old panelled doors set aside, new boards laid among the old.

New timber decking and railings with crossed lattice, a block wall on the left and palms against the dawn sky — New decking and railings, with crossed lattice, facing the morning sky.

New concrete block walls on an open floor, with steel bars and wooden forms for columns and a red ladder — New block walls rising, with steel and wooden forms ready for the columns.

The new timber frame and block walls seen across a green corrugated roof, with a forested hill and royal palms behind — The new work seen across the green roof, beneath the hill.

Springfield House

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