Casual
BARNES, FRED
Casual HOME ALONE The temptation was there for years: buy a second home somewhere outside the Beltway and nest there on weekends, for long, lazy periods during the summer, at Thanksgiving and...
...My sister Rosa and her husband Jack, who run a missionary organization called Christian Outreach International, are even closer...
...Particularly attractive are the direct flights each day on Spirit Airlines between Reagan National Airport in Washington (10 minutes from our house) and Melbourne, Florida (40 minutes from the second home...
...I love doing these shows...
...Barbara and Grace, along with Barbara's mother, spent a week there in May, furnishing it but also getting beach time...
...I don't want to turn the house into a rental...
...I tilted toward the countryside around Charlottesville, Virginia, where our daughter Grace is a student at the University of Virginia...
...But Vero is close by plane...
...My wife Barbara and I had never been able to agree on where our second home should be or even whether it made sense to buy one...
...Barbara favored the beach, but not Vero Beach, where my parents moved in 1972 and where my mother still lives...
...The catch is that while television made buying a second home possible, it's also what keeps me from getting there...
...Vero Beach is a lovely town with very little commercial development on the beach...
...A quick SaturdaySunday drop-by in May...
...And there are many inexpensive airline options (under $200 round trip...
...Our daughter Sarah, son-in-law John, and granddaughter Grace have reserved the house for a week in June...
...Access to UVA football, basketball, and lacrosse games was a strong selling point...
...Well, I have no intention of retiring anytime soon...
...Memorial Day weekend...
...Not going to happen...
...But the Los Angeles Dodgers train in Vero each spring, playing exhibition games at a stadium whose outfield is lined with palm trees...
...They're flying...
...Join my kids in Vero Beach during June...
...Now comes what I didn't think would be the hard part: getting there...
...Too hot, too humid, Barbara insisted...
...People are flocking to the new place...
...My model is Robert Novak, still the hardest working man (and best reporter) in journalism at age 70...
...I couldn't have purchased the place on my print journalism earnings alone...
...We bought it on the spot...
...But I probably shouldn't get my hopes up...
...What's keeping me away is a catch I didn't expect...
...Didn't happen...
...I do want to get there...
...Of course, I need the TV money now more than ever...
...My mother lives fifteen minutes away...
...Print is less of an impediment, since you can work away from the office...
...And it's not like a hotel...
...It was an impulse buy...
...The old rule of thumb is that if the second home is more than two hours away, you'll rarely go...
...We both changed our mind when we saw this house...
...But that's not true in this case...
...I don't know how he manages this...
...But they don't make it easy to get to Vero Beach...
...Didn't make it then either...
...And there's a Dodgers farm team that plays all summer in the Florida State League...
...Bob has a second home in Bethany Beach, Delaware, less than three hours' drive from Washington...
...When I do have a chance to get there, I want it to be vacant...
...gardener, gated community fee—just keep piling up...
...Nobody is deterred by the 16-hour drive from Washington to Vero...
...Maybe there's a habit of leaving Washington behind that I haven't developed...
...But I make a little extra from television...
...It turns out the two-hour rule applies only to me...
...Sure, his place is closer than Florida...
...I have to pay whether I'm there or not...
...If there's nightlife, I've never heard about it and don't want to...
...Casual HOME ALONE The temptation was there for years: buy a second home somewhere outside the Beltway and nest there on weekends, for long, lazy periods during the summer, at Thanksgiving and Christmas and maybe other holidays...
...Sounds like a perfect retirement town, doesn't it...
...A place beyond earshot of the Washington buzz, a place to read or watch sports on cable TV without interruption, a place to get my entire family together—that was my fondest dream...
...I've got plans to spend the last week in June there...
...The Fox News Channel pays me for showing up five days a week if humanly possible for Brit Hume's popular evening show and also taping a weekend show with Mort Kondracke...
...He does plenty of TV, yet gets to Bethany all the time...
...Her older sister Karen and husband Allen have locked in a separate June week...
...This is why I like it...
...The expenses of a second home—mortgage, taxes, insurance, cable TV, telephone, lawn service, caretaker (important...
...FRED BARNES...
...They're not driving...
...Young people call the town Zero Beach, because it's so unexciting...
...Several months ago I succumbed and bought a house (with a small swimming pool) a half block from the Atlantic Ocean in Vero Beach, Florida...
...But I intend to—as soon as I finish just one more TV show...
Vol. 6 • June 2001 • No. 37
