A Social Splash

The boomer beach house scene has been quietly going strong for decades. Lynne Meyer, 67, who was a member of the Heartbreakers for years, recalls the heyday of the mature scene about 10 years ago, when cocktail parties were elaborate and took months of planning. The Circus House party had a dunk tank, clowns and a kissing booth. The Balloon House party required everyone to bring a helium balloon and release it in the house once they arrived. One house hosted a plantation party, and women showed up in hoop skirts and men in Confederate get-ups, some in carriages, some on horseback.

But over the years, people have retired or moved away. A few died. Others got tired of the beach scene. Some, like Meyer, bought their own beach houses. And some did find true love, got married and moved on. The Bird House is known for such magic -- producing more marriages than any other.

"It does happen. But not that often," said Ed Goode, 58, who is divorced and works for the federal government. "If you come down here to meet the 'one,' your soul mate, it just doesn't happen. Usually, you're wound too tight. You've just got to think that you're coming here to have fun. To be free. To get away from the constraints of official Washington."

Of course, the beach is a draw, as are the restaurants. There is the freedom to don a pair of mauve shorts and a purple T-shirt and jump on your bike, as Goode likes to do, away from the hassles of a stressful Washington job. And there is companionship. Wilson Varga, a middle-aged man with a heart condition, takes comfort in knowing that not only will his housemates watch his keys and wallet when he goes for a swim, they will know what to do with his nitroglycerin should the need arise.

Still, that promise, that hope of a second chance, runs through the crowd like an electric current. Many want what Steve Tupper, 63, a Vietnam vet formerly of the Margaritaville group house, just got.

Shortly after 11 p.m. Friday night, Tupper charges into the Summer House restaurant and bar, the hangout for the older set in Rehoboth. He is bursting with happiness. He brushes sand off his right knee, the one he knelt on at the beach moments ago to propose to a woman he met last year at a "Back to the Beach" party. Even in the dim light of the bar, the diamond ring sparkles.

"I'm in love!" Tupper says as the 1980s hit "Don't Stop Believing" plays loudly in the background.

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Saturday night. The group at the Cottage has spent the day playing tennis or biking the new seven-mile trail to Lewes. Paull Phillips, a retired defense contractor, has brought his special plastic cocktail glasses with the pink flamingos to the beach. Roy, an attorney from Northern Virginia who prefers not to give his last name, is searching for the eyeglasses he lost after a swim in the ocean and can't drive home without. They've decided to cook together and forgo the Sunsation House's end-of-summer "Women in Black" cocktail party.

There, house father Joe Kane, dressed in a loud green-and-red Hawaiian shirt, greets the partygoers with hugs. He's spared no expense to make this a memorable send-off. Chocolate martinis. Shrimp. Champagne fountain. Inside, Bev Farrand, a Washington caterer in a black cocktail dress accented by a thick necklace of turquoise, surveys the crowd. She jokes that some of her friends have dated half the men in the room. She herself has dated three. A friend comes by and describes the novel he's writing, "Ladies' Oasis," about his 10 years in the mature singles beach house scene. "It's not a love story, but it's about love," he says before going off in search of drinks.

Farrand joined Heartbreakers after her 10-year marriage failed. Maybe she'll find someone special again. Maybe she won't. Maybe here at the beach. Maybe not. She shrugs. She adjusts her wide-brimmed black hat and plunges into the crowd.