Vacation House Nightmare
In the past, I have owned ten vacation homes. That number surprises even me. Given that this was over thirty-five years, that’s an average of 3.5 years per vacation house, which is a pretty meaningless statistic. Right now, I own two, but then again, not really. One is a house in Ithaca that I pre-gifted to Cornell University, so while I control it, I don’t really own it. In another two years it will be twenty-five years with that house, and then the University can reclaim it. As for the other house, since it’s where I plan to live and I don’t own the apartment I occupy in New York, I think of that as my primary residence. So, I am currently vacation homeless by my reckoning.
I would argue that the most sought-after luxury in the United States is a vacation home. I believe it is an ephemeral, almost symbolic luxury. It signifies man’s quest for leisure, the good life and an escape from the daily grind of life. I remember my friend Frank driving me through Deer Valley (the scene of the crime for five of my ten over-indulgences) saying that there was more unproductive and unused assets on that hillside than in most countries of the world. Estimating about 2,000 ski houses at an average price of $5 million and a utilization rate of probably less than 5%, that would mean almost $5 billion of idle assets on just one hillside.
There are about 50 big ski areas, probably five times as many fancy beach resorts and twice that for mountain and lakeside spots. So, by my math, that means that there are several trillion dollars worth of unproductive and largely idle assets laying around just so people can feel good that they have an escape valve from life. There must be something to vacation homes if it’s worth that much to people. I, myself, learned something from each house I owned.
My first was a cabin on a hillside in the Berkshires (it was actually Columbia County, NY, but it was real close to the Berkshires). It had a serious fly problem since it had not been well-caulked by the builders. It was on a pine-covered hill that I terraced with rock gardens. I was in my young and vigorous stage of life. The most memorable aspect of that house was that after spending the weekend, we had several bags of garbage, which included about 5,000 dead flies, that had to be carried out since the dump wasn’t open on Sunday. This seemed to be a common problem in that vacation area since on the Taconic Parkway home, every rest stop had a trash can surrounded by about 100 garbage bags. These were left by wealthy weekenders that were probably liberal ideologues, but who had weekend garbage to deal with. They somehow felt that the upstate folks could handle the garbage better than the NYC Department of Sanitation.
My second place was in the same area and was ten acres on the top of a hill overlooking a bucolic lake. I bought the land, planned out a lovely house on top, put in a gravel drive up the hill, sunk a leach field for the septic system and dug the foundation. As they say in construction, I was ready to go vertical when I had a change in circumstances and put the property up for sale. I was in no rush since taxes on raw land were pretty reasonable. In fact, I learned a valuable business lesson with that property. By being in no rush, when I got a low-ball offer, I just stood my ground. Over several months and every imaginable entreaty, I just let the buyer come up to my offer price. I sold it with the buyer cursing me all the way.
My Hamptons house was probably my most well-used house. It was in the village of Quiogue. Everyone who I told, thought I meant Quogue, but I meant Quiogue. In the language of the Shinnecock Indians, Quogue meant clam, which was the shape of the landmass that jutted out into Quantuck Bay. Quiogue in Shinnecock meant little clam and was the name of the little land mass jutting into the same bay. My next-door neighbor at that house was the heir to one of the two great tug boat fleets in New York Harbor. He was feuding with his backyard neighbor, who wanted to exercise a right-of-way across his land. Instead of a peaceful weekend getaway, this poor guy just shifted from weekday battles to weekend battles. For the fifteen years I owned the house, the feud just raged on and on.
The five houses I owned over fifteen years in Park City were all ski houses. I averaged 30-40 ski days per year. A saying in Park City is that everyone comes for the winters and stays for the summers. Indeed, summers on the high desert plateau are lovely. The sun feels warmer and the air dryer in Park City. The canyons nearby have great hiking and fishing. There is always something to do in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah. All three of my kids ski like the wind thanks to Deer Valley. We all got to go to the 2002 Winter Olympics because of having a vacation house there. I reignited my love of motorcycling thanks to the sweet canyon roads through Utah. I disliked the elitism of Deer Valley, but loved the silky corduroy-groomed slopes. MyDeer Valley day’s culminated with my meeting Chech Marin, my namesake, in the business office (we had duplicate names on our Deer Valley Cards and needed to resolve it). I told him he needed to change to Cheech, which he did not want to do, because I was the one getting calls in the middle of the night in the Hamptons by stoners looking for him and Tommy Chong. I won that one with a laugh as he skied off on his fat-boy skis with giant reefers painted on them.
My last vacation house sits on a hill overlooking forty miles of Pacific Ocean. There is nothing that beats a grand view at a vacation house. But I’m tired of vacation homes. All they do is make you feel that you’re being wasteful if you’re not using them all the time. The pools and courts are fine, but a view at least stands the test of time and doesn’t feel wasted if not “used”. My thinking is quite simple; if you’re going to escape, you might as well escape to a far away place and without guilt. That becomes less practical with age, but with a view you can transport yourself to distant lands without leaving your armchair or worrying about who’s using it while you’re away.