LakePlace.com in the News

A Lazy Lake Place
By Jim Buchta
Star Tribune

"Going to the cabin" is the summer mantra of thousands of Minnesotans. But for some, those words are synonymous with mowing the grass, raking the beach and plowing the drive. So a growing number of weekenders are investing in association-maintained cabins.

Haunted by childhood memories of a high-maintenance cabin in upstate New York, Joyce Fiedler swore that she'd never subject her family to those weekend rituals. Pack the car. Wrestle traffic. Unpack the car. Cut the grass. Rake the beach. The chores went on and on, she said.

It just didn't seem worth the effort.

"I just knew that I wasn't going to do this," she said. "What you need is not a cabin, you need a friend with a cabin."

All that changed when she heard about Waters of Vermilion, an association-maintained lake home community where a $150 monthly association fee pays for yard and drive maintenance, shoreline and dock management and round-the-clock emergency assistance.

She and her husband, Dennis, can even pay to have someone turn on the heat or the air conditioning just before they arrive with their three children.

"It's a lazy man's cabin," she said. "We have really busy lives and we want to go up and relax and we don't want to go mow the lawn. You have to write a check every month, but it's worth it to us."

The same forces that are driving the condo and townhouse boom in the Twin Cities area are sweeping the shorelines of Minnesota's lakes as a growing number of buyers eschew the chores of life on the lake for the simplicity of maintenance-free lake communities.

Baby boomers who spend their retirement shuttling between two and sometimes three homes and don't have the time or energy to deal with maintenance are helping drive this trend. And even busy professionals who would rather be sitting on a boat than a riding lawn mower are embracing the concept.

This isn't a weekend lifestyle for everyone, nor is it going to make the traditional cottage on the lake obsolete. Cameron Henkel of Lakeplace.com said maintenance-free lake homes still represent only a couple percent of all 15,000 for-sale listings the company has in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

People who want space, total privacy and complete autonomy to do whatever they want will steer clear of these association-maintained communities, which often come complete with thick three-ring binders full of bylaws that govern everything from rentals to paint color choices.

So many homes, so little time

Demand for vacation homes has exploded. Vacation home sales were up a record 16.9 percent last year from the year before, according to a report from the National Association of Realtors, which said that the market is dominated by baby boomers on the cusp of retirement or who have already retired and have enough disposable income to invest in real estate. One-fifth of all vacation-home owners last year said that they own two or more vacation homes.

That doesn't leave much time to tend the yard and wash the windows.

"Time is a precious commodity in people's lives and is becoming more so," said Greg Erickson, who owns and markets Waters of Vermilion. "We're catering to people that choose to spend their time doing what they want to do."

That project, which has 45 small cabin sites on 28 acres along Lake Vermilion, is somewhat unusual because the cabins are detached, but part of a homeowner's association. Most maintenance-free lake homes are newly built attached condominiums and townhouses in small lakeside developments where owners share use of docks, shoreline and community space.

That's likely to change, said Pat Wiebusch of Remax Lakes Area Realty in the Brainerd Lakes area. He said that as more communities adopt strict, low-density zoning rules along their lakes, it's getting more difficult to build higher-density townhouse and condo projects and so a growing number of resort owners are converting their properties into association-maintained communities in which individuals buy their cabins and a share of the association that owns and maintains common spaces.

Paula Jackson of Remax Lakes Area Realty in the Alexandria area, who has also helped convert resorts into RV communities, said that cabins in former resort communities with shared amenities are often much more affordable than a traditional cabin on a larger lot.

"It's a great opportunity to own something on a lake," Jackson said.

Tom Kavanaugh and his brothers, for example, are in the process of converting a resort that's been in their family for nearly 40 years into an association-maintained community with 75 cabins for individual owners, who can be enrolled in the resort's rental program.

"People want to be at the lake, they like the idea of ownership, but a lot of people we talked with who have owned a lake home couldn't justify it," Kavanaugh said. "They were buying these lake places and they just weren't spending quality time there, they were spending so much time working on it."

Kavanaugh and his brothers are investing about $15 million to convert existing rental units into for-sale cabins and build new ones. They've sold seven of the 75 units. Prices range from $250,000 to $579,000 depending on sizeand proximity to the lake, but would cost twice that if they were on larger lots elsewhere on the lake, Kavanaugh said.

A $250 monthly association fee includes access to swimming pools and tennis courts and all exterior maintenance. Owners can elect to enroll their units in the rental program and split the proceeds with the Kavanaughs.

"I think you're going to see a lot more of it in the resort world," he said.

On the North Shore of Lake Superior, for example, where shoreline prices easily exceed $1,000 a foot and development costs can be prohibitive, these condo and townhouse projects have been extremely popular.

Odyssey Development, for example, recently completed building the Larsmont Cottages on Lake Superior, a 40-unit complex of fully furnished, side-by-side townhouses that can be bought in fractional shares. A quarter share of a single unit, for example, sells for $148,000 to $185,000 and comes with three months' use. Some buyers have purchased double or full shares. Each quarter-share owner pays an additional $630 every three months, which includes maintenance and access to all amenities.

The project opened last year and all of the full shares are sold and only five quarter shares are still available, said Odyssey marketing director Cindy Rodenhizer.

After 14 months of visiting their new three-bedroom cabin at Waters of Vermilion, where she will eventually be sharing amenities with dozens of other families, Joyce Fiedler knows that it's not a lifestyle that will appeal to everyone.

"It takes a certain leap of faith," she said. "You have to be hopeful that you're going to like your neighbors."