A Social Splash

There are no overnights.

"People make noise. We don't want that," said John Wallace, 60, the "house father" of the Dewey Drop In. "I don't want disruption of any kind. I want people to sleep properly."

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It's Friday evening of Labor Day weekend, the last beach house weekend of the summer. At Summer Dreams, singles have been arriving all afternoon, choosing which bed they'll sleep in. The Seashell and Palm bedrooms are highly sought after for their private baths. The Sails Bedroom, with its bunk beds, usually fills last. The phone starts ringing for tennis dates, lunch invitations and dinner plans. Seymour uncorks a bottle of wine. Miles Davis music plays softly while some members sit in front of their laptops, using the house Wi-Fi to finish up some work.

A few miles away, a crowd gathers on the back deck with Coors Lights at the Dewey Drop In, one of the older singles beach houses, before leaving for Taco Toss, a weekly happy hour at the Lighthouse bar. Members of the group, some well into their 50s and 60s, dutifully present IDs to the bouncer at the door.

"Do you remember Lori?" Robinson, who is wearing Mardi Gras beads, asks a friend over the pounding music and the crush of people. "She used to be with the Kahuna House."

"You mean the one with the black hair?" his friend asks.

"Well, it's gray now."

The Taco Toss is one place where the "seasoned" set mixes with the 20-somethings. True, there are some older people in group houses with Gen X and Gen Y-ers. And no doubt there are the "cougars," older women on the prowl for younger men, and older men who joke about finding not necessarily Miss Right, but "Miss Right Now." But they're not part of the more exclusive mature beach house scene.

Debbie McDonald, a Dewey Drop In alumna, squeals as she finds the current members and hugs them all. She calls them her family. She nurses an orange crush, the drink of choice at The Lighthouse -- orange vodka, triple sec, Sprite and O.J. -- and quickly becomes serious when explaining her connection to these houses for older singles. After her husband died eight years ago, she was lost. And after you've been part of a couple for so long, you don't know how to be single again.

"I wish I could have that life back," she says, her bright eyes watering. "But you can't. So you do what you can and go on."

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