Five longtime Pacific Palisades families who own vacation homes in locations ranging from the mountains to the deserts have formed a group informally called ‘Second Homies.’ The goal is to make it safe, reliable and easy to swap vacation homes with other group members. The group was the brainchild of Tom and Michele Alper, who reside in the Marquez Knolls neighborhood and have two sons in college, Mike and Matt. ’As empty nesters we now have more opportunity to travel and a vacation condo that is frequently unoccupied,’ Tom says. ‘We discussed trading it with other people who have second homes, but we weren’t comfortable trading our home over the Internet with people we’ve never met.’ Tom decided to place an advertisement in the Palisadian-Post to see if other local families might have an interest in this idea. He received a number of inquiries and ultimately five couples decided to meet face-to-face to see whether the concept felt right. The group held their first meeting at the Oak Room restaurant on Swarthmore, where they were all pleasantly surprised to see a quick rapport develop based on their shared enthusiasm for travel. The attendees shared details of their second homes that include destinations such as Santa Fe, New Mexico; Leucadia, California; Park City, Utah; and Whistler in British Columbia. The couples all had different reasons for wanting to participate. Scott and Ashley Cohen live in the Alphabet Streets with their 2-year-old son, Mason, and newborn daughter, Soleil. ‘Our motivation for joining,’ says Scott, ‘is to connect with a trusted community of like-minded families that we know on a personal level in the Palisades area to share the benefits of traveling to each others’ locations in an ‘easy, trusted’ way.’ Longtime residents Julie and George Kalmar have a daughter, Gabrielle, in college and an 8-year-old son, Jonah. They had tentatively begun to use an online exchange program with positive results, so doing the same thing with local families was an easy choice. ’People tend to be emotionally attached to their second homes, so it’s a lot of fun to share it with others,’ Julie says. Empty nesters Scott and Marilyn Rutherford live in the upper Alphabet Streets. They told the group, ‘We never liked to rent our vacation home out’too much wear and tear. But people tend to treat more gently the home of someone they know, so swapping with a close group seems to be the best of both worlds.’ Longtime Palisadians Merritt Adams and Sandy Rand take pride and pleasure in sharing their mountain vacation home with others. ‘Because we have a 14-year-old son, Spencer, who is in school here, we have limitations on how much time we can spend away. Even with friends and family frequently using our second home, there are still many weeks when it sits empty and that seems like a waste of a great resource. Plus, it would be terrific for our family to be able to borrow other nice homes in destinations where we would otherwise pay for hotels.’ The group’s second meeting took place at the Adams-Rand’s home (north of Bestor Boulevard), where the group set forth some basic tenets about how the group would function. A key decision was to limit the size of the group to about 15 local families to ensure that everyone felt at ease with each other. Another decision was that no money would be exchanged, but that each home borrower would utilize and pay for an owner-specified cleaning service at the end of their stay and cover the estimated utilities. While there are numerous online house-trading organizations, this group of Palisades families feels much more at-ease about the idea of opening their homes to others who reside locally and whom they personally know and trust. The group plans to continue to meet every few months to socialize and to solidify the details of their program, with the goal of having the trading begin in early 2011. For more information or to attend a casual meeting with Palisades neighbors to talk about trading second homes while enjoying a glass of wine, please send an e-mail to palitrades@gmail.com.
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