Before the Island
Cleveland, the law, and the respectable road not taken.
My story / In my own words
The long way to paradise.
A life told properly takes more than a biography. This is where I’ll tell the whole story—one chapter, photograph, mistake, and unlikely turn at a time.
The opening / St. Thomas
Begin here.I didn’t come here looking to become Island Mike.
I came to St. Thomas in 2009. Before that, I was a lawyer in Cleveland living the kind of respectable life that made perfect sense on paper.
What happened next deserves more than a neat paragraph beneath a photograph. So I’m writing it down properly: the life before the island, the decision to stay, the people who changed me, the businesses we built, the things that went gloriously wrong, and why I still believe the best days rarely begin with a plan.
The chapters ahead
A story with room to breathe.
New chapters and photographs will be added as the story is written. Nothing has to fit into a résumé, a timeline, or a tidy origin myth.
Coming to St. Thomas
The temporary move that quietly became a life.
Several Lives at Once
Weddings, tours, family, reinvention, and useful detours.
Building Three Queens
Rum, old stones, difficult history, and a home port of our own.
The photographs matter
Not decoration. Evidence.
Photographs will live inside the story where they belong—between chapters, beside memories, and at the moments when the island itself needs to speak.