About Us

About the Owners

Deborah BernsteinDeborah Bernstein is a yoga instructor and the founder of Roslindale Yoga Studio, in Boston, MA. She now runs the St. John villa business and leads yoga and adventure retreats with Scott. After 15 years of working as a management consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers and later running an international corporate finance department for Iron Mountain, she left the corporate world to teach yoga. Deborah has long been involved with community service - while obtaining her MBA from Boston College, she ran a tutor mentor program for high risk teens from Boston's inner city and later while working at PwC, Deborah began teaching yoga to middle school students from the Boston Public Schools. Deborah's commitment to supporting the community continues with her work at the villa, providing free vacation time at the villa to wounded veterans and families of fallen firefighters. Throughout the year, Deborah leads yoga retreats at the villa; her yoga teaching style is an eclectic mix of vinyasa and mindfulness practice, inspired by viniyoga and Kundalini.

Scott WahlenScott Wahlen is a Captain in the Boston Fire Department and a former US Marine. Scott spent many years traveling the most untraveled parts of the world during his time in the Service and later on his own. He hiked Mt. Kenya and Mt. Kilimanjaro, scuba dived at the Great Barrier Reef, Sharem el Sheikh and Dahab, toured the Great Wall of China and visited some of the most sacred parts of India, Israel and Egypt. Scott has also explored the caves of Cappadocia and gone trekking in Timbuktu, Mali and Sudan. Firefighter's AxesScott is no stranger to remote islands either, having visited Zanzibar, Mombasa, Gomee de Ios and Okinawa - but of course, his favorite island is St. John. Scott's sense of adventure extends to his many athletic accomplishments, including running numerous marathons around the world. Scott is deeply committed to community service, in particular supporting wounded veterans and working with children who have cancer. In 2004, Scott lead an initiative to support the wounded troops at Walter Reed Medical Center - he collected hundreds of t-shirts and gifts from the Boston Fire Department, Boston Red Sox and NE Patriots and he and Deborah hand delivered the gifts and visited every soldier and marine in the Walter Reed Medical Center.

Our Service Mission at Florian Villa

Together, Scott and Deborah continue their community work with their purchase of Florian Villa in 2007. They bought the villa in order to provide a haven and vacation spot for wounded veterans and families of fallen firefighters. For every 5 all-inclusive vacations at the villa, Deborah and Scott donate a week long all-inclusive vacation for a wounded veteran or family of a fallen firefighter. You can support this work too, by planning your next vacation at the villa. The next phase of their work in St. John is to make the villa handicapped accessible. They are expecting to do the renovations in 2008 or early 2009.

Why the name Florian?

Why the name Florian?If you're wondering about the name "Florian": Saint Florian is the patron saint who protects firefighters and their families. So we thought it fitting to name the villa after something dear to us...namely, health and safety.

We look forward to vacationing with you soon at Florian Villa!
Namaste,
Scott and Deb

Namaste means the "light that burns in me honors the light that burns in you" This is a traditional Sanskrit saying, often used in yoga classes throughout the world.

Florian Villa is proud to support SUDS - Soldiers Undertaking Disabled SCUBA, an organization that supports wounded Soldiers and Marines.

The owners of Florian Villa have donated the villa, transportation and food for a 2009 SUDS trip to St. John. Please help us pay the soldiers' airfare for this trip by making a tax deductable donation to SUDS, a 501(c)3, non-profit organization and a chapter of the Wounded Warrior/Disabled Sports Project.


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