Relaxation, in Rotation

Ben Miller, from left, Bruce Steinwald, Peter Steinwald, Ronnie Steinwald, Alex Steinwald, Jerry Anderson, Judy Peres, Larry Miller and Maureen Miller have found ways to make sharing a second home work. (By Bill O'leary -- The Washington Post)
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Co-owners also should have the same outlook and get along, said Jon Summerton, vice president of Twiddy and Co., which manages about 780 properties on North Carolina's Outer Banks. "It's like picking a marriage partner," he said. It also helps to contract out much of the maintenance and upkeep, he said.

Gail Lynch, a longtime D.C. resident, was among a group of friends who had been happily renting a house in Rehoboth Beach in the 1970s before deciding to pool their funds to buy.

"Friendships were broken, and it was a disaster," said Lynch, who was a frequent guest but not co-owner of the new house. "Where the whole thing fell apart was on the maintenance and repairs." Some people favored the do-it-yourself approach and using less expensive materials. Others wanted to pay for higher-quality repairs -- and for someone else to do them, Lynch said. Ultimately, most members of the group sold their shares, she said.

The Millers and their co-owners crafted a two-page contract that spells out rules for such issues as use of the house by others (occasionally), small repairs (responsible by the family on their watch), and a Thursday-Thursday week (to get an uninterrupted weekend).

The contract has served their group so well that a former neighbor and former guest at the river house used it as a model for a similar arrangement in Texas, Miller said.

The families trade off holidays and weeks, and strive to schedule fairly. Couples must agree with each other for their vote to count on major decisions. Recently, they voted on whether to buy a new sofa bed, remodel a bathroom and resurface the driveway.

The families are rarely all at the river house together, but do socialize at home in Washington.

Because they bought the house when their children were young and messy, they agreed to keep furniture modest, Maureen Miller said. "We decided that we wanted it to be a place where, if things happened, no one was going to be bent out of shape," she said.

But the contract's most important feature was to stipulate a standard of mutual respect for any decisions. "Sharing the house was supposed to be for everyone's enjoyment, and the last thing we want is to have it ruin our friendship," she said.