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I've always wanted to be able to refer to a family beach house.
I’m among those fortunate to have such a family property on a beautiful lake in the northeast US. It’s been in my mom’s family for 4 -5 generations, we have pictures of my great grandfather sitting by the dock. It’s a modest place and while it’s worth a lot of money now, it hasn’t really ever been much more than a camp. Our neighbor’s beach house is much fancier, but they just bought it 26 years ago.
As I get older and my own family grows, the thing that I realize is that this is truly priceless. It’s one of the few things in my life that someone infinitely richer than me can’t just buy, and it’s something I am actively working to preserve for future generations.
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My wife said when we got married and she started a new job, it felt so fucking good when partners would ask her what she was doing this weekend and she said "oh we're heading to our family's place at the shore" and she could watch people's assumptions about her adjust in real time.
That said, while I enjoy going there, it's almost certainly been a bad choice over time. Unless you're really committed to it, it ends up sitting empty too much to be worth it financially versus just getting a rental. The only real reason to do it is either as a flex, or because in the off-season you want somewhere to hide out and play the shitbird.
My friend from way back had a family beach house--it was right on the beach up from
Eugene(somewhere in) Oregon though I don't remember the town--you could see the ocean right out the window, and to get to the sand and the water was a minute's walk down a short sloping hill. The beach was one of those long wide ones where you could splash your feet around, almost like a tidal flat--you'd go for meters until the water ever came as far as even your ankles. Truly beautiful. I stayed there once, two nights; we drank Full Sail bottled beers on the deck, ranged barefoot up and down the stretch of sand, flew kites, ate Mexican omelettes with homemade salsa and drank hot coffee there in the kitchen nook where you could watch the morning waves coming in. What a place.They had money from a very well-known business owned by I think his grandfather, but something happened and there was a breakdown in relationships, and then everyone began squabbling over that house, and I think it was either sold or just torn down, or both. A terrible waste. My friend was (is) a very laid-back guy and just shrugged it off. Would have hurt me bad.
I'm lucky in that my sister and I get along very well, and our intention is that she inherits the beach house for a variety of reasons, with the understanding that I and my immediate descendants will be allowed to use it reasonably often. And frankly the understanding that I'm probably still going to do or contract for a lot of the physical repairs on the house, because that's just kind of a me thing in our relationship. Split ownership nearly always leads to ultimate sale, as relationships become attenuated.
Getting older, I'm realizing two things: my parents made a number of status-oriented purchases that I wouldn't have made and that I consider mistakes, and that despite considering these things clear financial mistakes I have mixed feelings about not holding onto those purchases or continuing them for my children because slipping in status is a tougher thing than not advancing it.
My parents belonged to a country club for 30 years and hated it the whole time, while spending tons of money there for mediocre food. They raised me to hate it, weirdly, in that they constantly told me, when dropping me off at country club kids etiquette events, that they didn't want me to turn into a snob who would only be friends with the country club kids. The push and pull made the whole membership a waste of energy: as a shy and awkward teenager I overcorrected and disdained the preppy country club kids, listened to too much old sXe hardcore punk, and made myself a loner for no reason. I thought that being friends with those kids would force me to adopt everything about them. Giant waste of money.
But there's something about considering losing those status symbols that is worse than not ever having them. I'd never consider buying a beach house, I don't like the beach enough, but I wouldn't want to lose the family place for my kids.
I had a similar relationship with my background and just how WASPy it all is, including a family camp on a lake in the northeast US. Ultimately, “For the kids” is what made me realize it’s less about the snobbery and more the sense of timelessness and continuity of having such a touchstone.
I am reassured to know that I can go to a place that I’ve connected to in different ways and at different times, and it makes me grateful for my ancestors having preserved this for my benefit. Planting a tree for your descendants to sit beneath and all that. Makes me well up.
The place is now in my mom’s cousin’s name, and I have become very concerned about preserving it after they pass.
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