Pam and Kim grew up in the small agricultural town of Half Moon Bay, California. The daughters of adventurous small business owners with a “if you are going to do something, do it right” attitude were the first to instill the ideas and beliefs about environmental awareness and sustainable living. As a result the sisters had an idea of systems in nature and entrepreneurial mindsets from a young age. 
 
Pam attended university in Colorado for two years before she decided that she wanted to live the experiences she was reading about in classes. Her first solo trip was a three month adventure in Europe, where she caught the serious travel bug. A couple of years later she sold all her belongings, packed her bags and went on a two year adventure around the world. From Bali to Spain she gained cultural experiences and realized she wanted to invest in a foreign country to make a new home. When she returned to the states after her world wide journey, she worked seasonal jobs as a white water raft guide and a bartender at ski resorts to save up some money. After five years of this and living out of her VW bus part-time she was getting antsy to do something else, something big! 
 
It was a particularly cold winter in 2008 when Pam came to visit a friend in Uvita for the first time. There was only one hostel then and it wasn’t anywhere near the beach. Bells were ringing in her head that this was her opportunity to start her own eco-friendly place. With all her years of traveling, she had journals filled with notes and photos of hostels and the features that took her interest. She made this into an outline of her perfect hostel and decided to make the investment of a new life in Costa Rica.  In December 2008, Pam moved to Costa Rica and bought the Flutterby property with a combination of loans and funds from friends and family who wanted to invest in her vision. Barely seven months after her initial visit to Uvita, Flutterby had been born. 
 
Younger sister Kim has another story. Kim moved to South Lake Tahoe to snowboard and attend South Lake Tahoe Community College after high school. Without much direction, she took classes across the board to get a glimpse of what she might want to study. It was an Ecology class with a professor whose expertise was in stream and river wetland restoration that sparked Kim’s passion for environmental causes. In 2006 she graduated from San Francisco State University with a BS in Business Management and an emphasis in the Greening of Business. This was all before Flutterby was even a thought in Pam’s head. Kim worked winters at a ski resort in Mammoth California for three years. She was back and forth between jobs before she realized that Flutterby was the perfect prelude in making living green an example for others to live by. It was after her third visit to Costa Rica that she then decided to officially move and help her big sis run the Flutterby House.
 
After a year of hard work by many and living in teepees, the Flutterby House opened in December 2009. Borrowed big canvas tents and camping were the main accommodations as they continued to build private cabinas and add dorm beds. Every day for three years, Pam and Kim would go to the bus stop in Uvita with flyers in hand asking people to come stay at the Flutterby House down at the beach. Being published in Lonely Planet was a game-changer and the Flutterby House has been growing ever since, adding the Bar in 2013 and the Restaurant in 2014.  
 
All along the way there have been amazing people who have become part of our crew, some were paid workers, some work traders and some paying guests who just wanted to be a part of this epic adventure we call the Flutterby House. It’s been a dynamic, ever-evolving project turned into a lifestyle adventure. An idea can turn into a dream, can turn into a reality and anyone can do it!