We stayed at Lavender Hill in Nov. The location was excellent. We really enjoyed that we could walk to town and not worried about parking and driving. With that location, it is not necessary to have a car everyday, except maybe a day or two to Coral Bay and other more remote beaches. But I want to point out that the building is sitting right on top of a cemetary. Personally, I felt a little bit eerie, especially when I did the laundry at night. However, I think it is probably just me since I don't see other people posted any comment about this. I also felt the ferries were loud.

In my opinion, you can also check condos at Battery Hill which have great view. Not as close to town as Gallows Point, but still within walking distance. I visited some units on my last trip. They are not as big as Lavender Hill, but are more updated and more tastefully decorated. The views are also better.

I would also look into Estate Lindholm and Star Villa.

Well, I'll chime in...

I agree that Coral Bay is out if you aren't renting a car. You'll never get the taxi service you need and if you manage to, it'll cost you a fortune. Not much to see or do in Coral Bay in my humble opinion and you can always take a taxi out there for brunch at Miss Lucy's if you desire.

Someone posted that Cruz Bay was more of a party/bar type scene and while there are bars there, unless you are there on Fri or Sat night, it's more of a restaurant/dinner town with everyone meandering to their choice for the night. Lots of candlelight but extremely casual corners for dinner and R & R... in this case, RUM and RELAXATION!

Ditto all the comments on Gallow's Point as a choice for you... we loved our nights in 15D, an ocean front upper and our friends were in 1C and it was also nice. The properties are individually owned and can vary greatly in how nice they are so search the archives for trip reports on favored units. People either love Gallow's or hate it depending on their unit so research is A MUST. Check out Tripadvisor.com for more comments on Gallow's Point. We personally loved walking into town for dinner (5 minutes at the most) and then back to the pool and hot tub which were never crowded when we were there in July. Lots of the time there might be one other person in the pool and though small, it had a lovely view of the lights of St Thomas. Gallow's will call you a cab to come up from Cruz Bay to take you to any beach you wish and we never had a problem from any of the beaches getting a cab back. My only precaution would be to arrange for a pick up if you go as far out as the Plantation Ruins near Leinster Bay. Other than that you should be able to catch a cab back into town as long as you aren't the last people on the beach at the end of the day. One other note, we never saw anyone really but the people that we were traveling with the whole time we were at Gallow's so I think privacy shouldn't be an issue... I would wake up each morning to the sounds of the waves lapping on the rocks while my husband sat on the deck reading and feeding the birds or watching the iguana that rested in a nearby tree. There are plenty of pictures of Gallow's and our unit on tripadvisor.com... I think they're posted under KathleenB or something similar.