St. Croix Love Story: When the Island Brings Two Lives Together

A St. Croix love story made the pages of the New York Times this month — and it unfolded right here, on the beach at the Buccaneer Resort in Christiansted, during the final days of 2024.

Mariam Khan, a field producer for ABC News, was on the island covering President Biden’s vacation. Maj. Phillip James McCoy, a fighter pilot with the Ohio Air National Guard, was part of the presidential detail. Neither was looking for anything. And yet there they were — strangers on the beach, sunglasses on — and something shifted.

A few days later, they met at Shupe’s on the Boardwalk in downtown Christiansted. They talked for hours: movies, careers, travel, and the shared exhaustion of modern dating. On New Year’s Eve, they walked toward each other on the boardwalk and watched the fireworks from the beach. By the time they each left St. Croix — she to Washington, D.C., he to Toledo, Ohio — they already knew they weren’t done.

They married in May 2026.

A St. Croix Love Story That Started on the Sand

Anyone who has spent real time on this island will tell you: this kind of thing happens here. Not because St. Croix is a fantasy backdrop, but because the island has a way of making people present. The noise falls away. The pace slows. You look up from your phone. You notice the person next to you.

Khan described the moment she and McCoy locked eyes on the beach as a kind of recognition — a “knowing look.” That’s not a line from a movie. That’s St. Croix doing what St. Croix does.

What Makes This Island Different

St. Croix isn’t built for crowds. It doesn’t have the manufactured energy of a mega-resort destination. What it has is something harder to design — a genuine sense of place.

Christiansted’s waterfront has been drawing people together for centuries. Frederiksted quiets down at sunset in a way that makes you want to stay. The East End opens up into open sky and open water. And then there are places like Shupe’s on the Boardwalk, where visitors and locals sit side by side and actually talk to each other, because there’s nowhere else to be and no reason to rush.

That’s the St. Croix most people don’t expect when they arrive — and the one they can’t stop thinking about after they leave.

Why People Choose to Stay

At Sea Glass Properties St. Croix, we see a version of this story regularly. Someone visits the island — sometimes for work, sometimes for a wedding, sometimes just because a friend insisted — and something clicks. The trip that was supposed to be one week turns into a question: What would it take to actually live here?

Some people buy a home on the North Shore and work remotely. Others invest in a vacation property in Christiansted and rent it seasonally. Some make the full move. The details are always different. The moment of recognition is usually the same.

St. Croix has a way of showing people what they’ve been looking for — whether that’s a partner, a slower pace, a community that still knows its neighbors, or a place to build something that actually feels like a life.

Ready to Write Your Own Chapter Here?

The Sea Glass team works with buyers, sellers, and investors across St. Croix. If you’ve been thinking about what it would mean to own property here — whether as a primary home, a vacation base, or an investment — we’d love to start that conversation.

Browse St. Croix homes for sale and see what’s available right now.

You can read the full New York Times story about Mariam and Phillip here.

Reach out to us at Sea Glass Properties, St. Croix. The island has a way of surprising people. Maybe it already has a plan for you.