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There was a time when my populist impulses made me wonder why it was a good thing for some Americans to be building second homes when so many Americans don't have first homes.
But then I learned about the benefits, during the campaign for our Third District congressional seat in 1994. Democrat Linda Powers of Crested Butte, then a state senator, was challenging incumbent Republican Scott McInnis.
Powers argued that the continued construction of trophy homes in rural areas was pushing housing prices up and therefore pushing working people out. Plus, wildlife habitat was getting fragmented, family ranches were being sold and divided, water quality was declining as aquifers dropped, local governments were having trouble paying for the road maintenance and law enforcement demanded by arrogant rich newcomers -- that was a start on what the second-home industry had to offer.
While these were primarily state and local issues, Powers said Congress could help by amending the internal revenue code to eliminate the tax breaks for second homes, like the deduction for mortgage interest.
McInnis said that would be wrong, because the construction of second homes provided many jobs in this congressional district, and he cared about the carpenters, electricians, plumbers, masons, painters, landscapers, alarm-installers, gate-builders and laborers.
At some point, he may further demonstrate this concern by trying to make sure they can afford houses near their work, but on the other hand, it's only been seven years since he told us he cared, and these things do take time.
Now that we know that the second-home industry is vital to our economy, perhaps we can learn why people want them, so that we can do a better job of accommodating them.
For my part, I'm confused after reading a story in the
Sunday Post. An owner of a 2,100-square-foot custom-built
manor explains that unless you have a place in the
mountains, you're really not experiencing Colorado.
Although I've lived in mountain towns since 1974, I've
never had a place in the mountains,
so I must have
missed the real Colorado experience
-- something I
had previously defined as being stranded by a blizzard
in May,
chili verde and beer in Red Cliff after
skiing over Shrine Pass
or driving a battered old
pickup with a cracked windshield and expired license plates
along back roads with a case of tall boys and a bag of
controlled substance and a couple of friends on a fine fall
afternoon while supposedly scouting locations for gathering
firewood.
But what about this place in the mountains
that
defines the real Colorado experience? Our congressman says
our economy needs them, and so we ought to know why people
want them, and it is here that I get confused.
On one hand, there are those who say that the house in
the woods is part of having a simpler life,
and that
It's a way for us to connect with nature and build
memories. It's a real detachment from our daily
lives.
This would imply some sort of rustic simplicity, along
the lines of Henry David Thoreau's sojourn at Walden Pond.
I have some familiarity with this lifestyle, thanks to
boyhood visits to my grandfather's homestead in Wyoming as
well as more recent excursions to cabins owned by friends,
and there's nothing simple
about it.
For instance, which is simpler: Padding down the hall to the bathroom, or finding the privy on a moonless night when skunks are wandering through the yard? Taking a shower, or heating water on the kitchen range and filling a galvanized tub? Throwing clothes into a dryer or hanging them on the line after running them through a hand-cranked wringer? Turning up the thermostat, or shaking down the clinkers and hauling the ashes and adjusting the damper and fetching another scuttle of coal? Retrieving milk from the refrigerator, or from the cow and the springhouse?
Just about any way you want to look at it, life is
simpler with modern conveniences. Besides, that
simpler
lifestyle is passe in the Colorado
second-home market anyway.
As one realty agent explained, the current idea is to be
connected, so that you can see deer out the windows
while trading pork bellies.
So you're intensely following the fluctuations of a
volatile global commodities market, but your soul is at
peace because there are a couple of muleys out there
consuming the garden of the second home you bought because
you needed a new number one status symbol
after the
people whose opinions matter to you quit being impressed by
your Palm Pilot and your Ford Exterminator?
So what are these second homes? Are they transient status symbols that will be replaced by some other decadence like personal trainers or spare-body-parts clones? Or are they permanent conduits to simplicity and serenity?
This may seem a trivial question, but our congressman has said these part-time palaces are vital to our economy here, and if they're just a fad, we need to prepare for whatever comes next.
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