One thing that we’ve learned since we bought the Lake House
is the importance of having good relationships with the neighbors. It’s not a
bad idea even in the city, but out here it can make life a lot easier. But even
beyond the practical value, knowing your
neighbors and having pleasant exchanges with them makes the summer home
experience more pleasant and satisfying. So even when we have occasional
quibbles with them, we try to make the best of things.
Minor quibbles in our condo association pretty much center
around the common areas, especially parking and the dock. But we also have a
unique setup here, with a common laundry house and well, but holding tanks that
are either for a single unit, two units, or three units (ours). Since we’re
located on the side of a bluff, all of these arrangements - parking, utilities, and holding tanks - are
constrained by our physical layout.
Things have gone pretty well so far. Our neighbors include
some senior citizen grandparents, some couples with young children, and some empty
nester couples like us. Some of them are related to each other, and some have
known each other for years. One is even the seller that we bought our unit from
– who owned two units before that. They all have their own stories, their own
personalities, and their own taste in flower bed plantings and tchotchkes (lots
of hostas and lighthouses). But they all share a love of Door County and the
lake, a sense of family continuity, and a willingness to be part of a group
that maintains this little former resort as a hideaway from modern stress and
trouble. Our dogs make friends with each other. We figure out how to stay out
of each others’ way when we park our cars, dry our lifejackets, or do our laundry.
We bring each other up to date on news that takes place between the Memorial
Day condo meetings. We humor the owner who doesn’t like woodpiles covered with
Visqueen that “glistens in the sun.” (I had to go and look up what Visqueen
might be. Apparently it’s a British trade name for polyethylene plastic
sheeting. You learn something new every day). We got past that one, because the
woodpile maker moved the pile, Visqueen and all, behind his unit. We stagger
our showers, our laundry loads, and our power washing, so we disturb each other
as little as we can. We hear kids playing and hollering on the dock as pleasant
instead of annoying. We tone down the Fourth of July fireworks for the benefit
of nervous dogs. We look out for each other, and move fallen tree branches and report
damage to each other. Some of us even share Wi-Fi.
One thing that helps keep us working together and getting
along with each other is the fact that none of us are wealthy. This is a very
middle-class property, and only being a “cooperative” enterprise allows people
of such means as we to own property on a stretch of shore where the average
price tag is over half a million dollars, and up to several million. Eleven of
us, pooling our resources, can jointly own a few hundred feet of shore (with
the most magnificent view in Door County), a marina with slips for each owner,
and acres of prime Door County cedar and birch woodland, in addition to our
modest and cozy little cabins, with their individual histories and individual
characters.
Another common factor drawing us together is the dock, which
is a big reason for the resort’s having been built in the first place. The
dock, being on the tip of the Door County mainland, takes a beating in all
seasons. Like our cabins, it’s built on a narrow shelf of glacier-carved rock –one
that extends out only about 50 feet underwater
before dropping off to a depth of over 100 feet in the Death’s Door strait. The
dock was filled in and built using combinations of rock, cedar timbers,
corrugated steel, and concrete. When we bought our place, there was a 20-foot
gap in the outer break wall where ice and storms had destroyed the structure
and the waves were pouring in. The first year we were here, we watched Door
County’s finest dock repair people (from Barnowski Lumber and Death’s Door
Marine, who have the greatest logo since the Grateful Dead) work over most of a year to rebuild it. They brought in truckload after
truckload of huge 
limestone boulders as rip-rap to protect the outer walls,
then dozens of huge cedar timbers to frame the crib and more rock to fill it,
and finally tons of concrete to finish the top (and create a new ledge on the
outer edge to give the seagulls a place to perch and to help shield the dock
from crashing waves). Even with all their work, we’ve noticed the rip-rap has
moved (or maybe that’s an illusion because the lake has gotten three feet
deeper). And one storm tore up the gravel area that was never covered in
concrete, throwing hundred-pound rocks around like gravel, and moving the
gravel to the opposite side of the dock). Mother Nature is not a lady to be
messed with, here at Death’s Door. But someone got a nice guy with a Bobcat to
push the rocks pretty much back where they belonged, and someone else rebuilt
the fire pit, so we’re back in business.
Even more charming was that a couple of the owners raised
the flagpole again, and someone else bought a flag, and finally the lady above
us bought some pennants that proclaimed our humble dock as a “yacht club.” We
had some good laughs about that, quoting “Caddyshack” and exclaiming, “Ahoy,
Polloi!”
And that’s just our neighbors in the condo development. We
also have neighbors nearby, though they are definitely more well-off than we.
But we share a love of the place and most of us walk our dogs out on the road,
dodging cyclists in some seasons and curious tourists in others. Most of them
are older than we are, and it’s kind of sad to hear them talking about having
to sell their places that were their dreams of decades ago, and think about
moving to retirement homes.
One thing that doesn’t cross the 45th parallel is people’s political views. Everyone seems to
keep that to themselves. Which is for the best.
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