thatch

When I bought my house, my grass was a mess of thatch and weeds.

I grew up in a house built out of 'wattle and daub', with a thatch roof.

Clients were happy about that, and it more than paid for beers and thatch huts.

Traditionally pretty much every ethnic group I know of built with mud brick and thatch.

That would explain my confusion about "most remote" comment, since it's hard to find a thatch-roofed bar on a really remote beach.

What you want isn't Manhattan sky-rises on your little island; you want cheap, pre-discovery Hawaii with its thatch huts and casual atmosphere back.

That's a level of poverty much of the American poor don't have to contend with- it's been a hundred years since many Americans had dirt floors, and many more than that since many American houses were thatchtops.