Gary Goerss of Powhatan has been planning a project for over eight years, and it’s finally coming to fruition.

In the coming months, perhaps a year or more, he intends to create Airbnb-style rental property on Gwynn’s Island that will offer up to nine rooms with individual baths and a central gathering area for visitors to Mathews County.

The Richmond-area contractor has owned a thin strip of commercial land overlooking Milford Haven for 16 years, and since 2010, he has planned for it to be a place where people can stay for a week at a time and enjoy water-related activities. A kayak enthusiast and builder, he hopes to be able to teach occasional kayak building workshops, attracting guests who will enjoy spending a week learning to build their own kayaks and trying them out in Milford Haven and the Piankatank River before taking them home.

“This was such a big boat-building place in the old days,” said Goerss. “I’d like to carry on that tradition.”

The strip of land consis...