We really enjoyed our stay in Star View. It is a stand alone cottage on the other side of the pool from Star Villa. It is in a great location just up from Gallows Point, about a 5 min walk to Cruz Bay. The villa has a living area & full kitchen downstairs and the bedroom & bath upstairs. There is a spiral staircase, so it might make it difficult for people who have limited mobility, especially getting luggage up and down. There are two balconies, the upstairs has an excellent view! If you are looking for a nice little place to call home for your stay in Cruz Bay, check into Star View.

our third year staying with bob and marlene in their star villa complex. they have about 5 or so villas on the edge of Cruz Bay, up past Gallows Point. the accomodations are nice and bob and marlene are a pleasure to work with. Gallows Point store offers a bagel breakfast and other sundries you might need for your villa. we used to rent cars on st john, but from here we walk into town, and take taxis or the bus if we want to go somewhere, or are returning from a hike. it saves money overall (rental cars are $75/day plus fuel) and avoids aggravation (we like the vacation from driving).

I visit St. John, United States Virgin Islands seven or eight times a year on business, and usually stay at Star Villas (vacancy permitting). The rooms in the various units have always been clean, the views sensational, and the decor in general (bamboo furniture, etc.) provide the guests with a real Caribbean ambiance. From the pick-up at the ferry dock on my arrival, to the return ride back on the day of my departure, I have always found Bob & Marlene Malacarne (owners) to be not only gracious and informative hosts, but always go above and beyond to make my stay a pleasant one. There are certainly more expensive, and less expensive places to stay on St. John, but in my judgment (all things considered), this is an excellent value.

I wish I had seen the review from trv08 on Feb 12 2008 before I booked - as it was spot on.

Regrets.

- I can certainly validate all the reviewer’s comments and I guess everyone’s expectations ‘are’ different as nothing has changed since - and the owners’ vitriolic,defensive, non-apologetic response is indicative of the lack of insight and low standards; as evidenced by the condition of the place. See photos for those unconvinced.
(No-one is going to spend their vacation complaining to owner that it’s a dump and needs gutting. No idea where all the "regular maintenance" was done. We certainly didn’t see any! “Some people are impossible to satisfy” certainly, but most folk expect it to be clean, adequately equipped and not falling apart.)

- We certainly weren’t expecting a used wet towel in the middle of the floor and discarded old food items in the fridgegreeting us on arrival. (Never a good sign.) We weren’t expecting everything to be so old, warn, broken and grubby, an old rusting grill that never got hot when we could actually get it lit, absence of drinking glasses, pans warn through the Teflon, rusted broken fridge we held on with tape, mold & stains on the curtains, no DVD/VCR, two old box TVs with grubby remotes (go downstairs to satellite box to control upstairs TV!), a rusting microwave - and absence of Wi-Fi signal despite the advert, etc etc etc

For the price paid for such a small place, this was really as sad and faded as the old prints on the walls. The owners may wish to plow some of their profit back in to a top-to-bottom refurb – not just a coat of paint on the walls. The potential is there is for a great little place a short walk from town center. Location is good. Condition isn’t.

When got talking to locals and they asked where we were staying their response was always the same – “Oh, too bad” or similar, was a comment heard several times as reported to them by prior renters.
The Villas appear to have a sad reputation in town whether the owners realize it not.
Star View NOT recommended unless you have the same low standards of the owners. This was by far the worst value for money of any my winter condo rentals in the Caribbean of the last ten years. (Stayed in a condo at Sapphire Beach St Thomas same day. Clean, fully equipped, modern and... same price... right on the beach.No comparison.)