Friends Buying Homes Near Each Other in Colorado Springs

Another great baby boomer idea on where to live when we retire!

https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-friends-move-next-door-11617807298

by Candace Owen

IN 2019, Ward Berlin and his wife, Karla Grazier, moved into a newly built house in a new Colorado gated community called Vermilion at Garden of the Gods. But they didn’t have to spend much time getting to know their neighbors: Many of the eight properties on their street were owned by friends they had known for years.

Brenda Smith and Judy Mackey, the developers of the 39-unit Colorado Springs community, planned to move in with their families and had offered the other lots to friends rather than putting them on the open market.

“There’s a big difference between a community and a neighborhood,” said Mr. Berlin, a 56-year-old private investor. Choosing neighbors who are also longtime friends, he said, lets him “spend more time with the people that I really care about.”

Members of the wealthy baby boom generation are meticulously planning their golden years, from first-floor master suites to who their neighbors will be. Groups of friends—many of them empty-nesters—are increasingly buying properties in the same housing developments, preserving or re-creating their social circles from back home, real-estate agents and developers said.

Seven units at the Pendry Residences Park City in Utah were purchased by a group of friends from the same country club in San Diego, the developer said, while three were purchased by friends from Arizona. At Clear Creek Tahoe in Nevada, seven couples from Silicon Valley bought lots.

Curtis and Connie Christofferson play shuffleboard with their longtime friends Ward Berlin and Karla Grazier. PHOTOS: THEO STROOMER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL(2)

People today are less likely to live their entire lives in the same geographical area, and therefore may not have family nearby, said Michael R. Solomon, a marketing professor at Saint Joseph’s University who has studied consumer behavior among baby boomers.

“They want to look for a surrogate for that kind of community support that they would have had with their family as they grew older,” he said. “It’s a support network. It’s also driven, maybe subconsciously, by wanting to avoid the specter of being stuck by yourself in a nursing home.”

Friends in the Golden Years

Ward Berlin and Karla Grazier purchased a home in a Colorado Springs, Colo., community so they could live near longtime comrades

The single-story home of Ward Berlin and Karla Grazier in Colorado Springs, Colo. The development is known as Vermilion at Garden of the Gods.

He is referencing the fact that many baby boomers are rejecting the type of retirement or continuing-care communities their parents lived in. Instead, boomers—a generation with large amounts of disposable income—are buying homes where they can age in place, often in lower-tax states with easy access to amenities like the beach or golf. And many are taking their existing friends along with them.

For many empty-nesters, knowing your neighbors in advance also helps eliminate some of the uncertainty of moving somewhere new, said Marianne Kilkenny, author of “Your Quest for Home: A Guidebook to Find the Ideal Community for Your Later Years,” who said these kinds of arrangements are becoming more common.

Mr. Berlin and Ms. Grazier, 66, had known Ms. Smith and Ms. Mackey and their respective families for 25 years, so they were intrigued at the idea of becoming their neighbors.

“We really wanted to socialize more,” said Mr. Berlin. “All of us are moving into that phase of life where hopefully we’re working less and we’re recreating more, and it’s great to have like-minded people around you.”

Mr. Berlin and Ms. Grazier spent about $3.2 million for the land and the construction of their roughly 5,000-square-foot, single-story house. Homes in Vermilion come with a membership in the adjacent Garden of the Gods Resort and Club, where the amenities include a golf course and a 10,000-square-foot medical center with doctors on site.

Ms. Smith and Ms. Mackey didn’t end up moving in, but the community includes three other couples Mr. Berlin and Ms. Grazier have known for at least 10 years, including longtime friends Curtis and Connie Christofferson, who recently started building a four-bedroom home.

David and Debbie Dacus are building a roughly $10 million house next door to their friends Steve and Karen Speer at Alpine Mountain Ranch & Club in Steamboat Springs, Colo. The two couples also both purchased condos in Florida at Harbour Ridge country club, where another mutual friend also owns a home.

“We have a great group of friends that just do everything together,” said Mr. Speer, 62, who worked in the commercial-construction industry before he retired. “It just kind of evolved.”

Mr. Dacus, 65, the retired owner of a pipeline-construction company, joked that they chose the lot next to the Speers because “Steve has a good wine cellar.” Ms. Dacus, 60, added: “We both like to throw parties, so this way we can just stumble home.”

Since Tom and Katie Marron bought property at Clear Creek Tahoe in Nevada, where they are building a roughly $3.5 million home for their retirement, six other couples they know have followed suit.

The Marrons live primarily in the Silicon Valley town of Los Altos Hills, Calif., where Mr. Marron, 55, works in the residential-mortgage business. But the last of their children will soon finish high school, and the couple didn’t want to retire in California.

“We started looking in states that have lower taxes,” said Ms. Marron, 55. They decided to buy in the Lake Tahoe area, where they had vacationed for years. They liked Clear Creek for its views, lake access and amenities such as golf and tennis, which they hope will tempt their adult children to visit.

They started telling their friends in Los Altos Hills about Clear Creek, and before they knew it, many of them had also purchased lots there, including their close friends Ana and Carl Eschenbach.

The Eschenbachs first visited Clear Creek on a weekend trip with the Marrons, said Ms. Eschenbach, 55, an interior designer whose husband is a partner at Sequoia Capital. They ended up purchasing three lots for a total of about $5 million. They are now designing a roughly 7,000-square-foot home, barn and casita for the site.

The Eschenbachs liked “the thought of growing old and being there with our dearest friends, Katie and Tom,” Ms. Eschenbach said. “We talk about pushing each other’s wheelchairs.”

She added that the idea of having a community of friends already in place—including “a natural golf partner” for her husband—is comforting, since it can be difficult to make new friends later in life. “You don’t have a lot of time,” she said. “You’re not at school with young kids meeting a lot of people.”

These arrangements often happen organically through word-of-mouth.

Tom and Lori Williams weren’t planning to buy real estate when they went to visit their friends Terri and Tony Toohey in the Coachella Valley. The couples had both previously lived at Winchester Country Club outside Sacramento, Calif., but the Williamses retired and moved to Maui. Meanwhile, the Tooheys had paid about $1.7 million for a second home at Andalusia Country Club, a La Quinta golf community with 500 homesites. Ms. Toohey, 63, is retired from the state of California but Mr. Toohey, 63, is still working as the owner of car dealerships.

When the Williamses visited the Tooheys at Andalusia three years ago, they had decided they wanted to move back to the mainland, but weren’t sure where. “When we drove into the neighborhood, I thought it was a really nice place,” recalled Ms. Williams, 64. “We thought, ‘Huh, this might be someplace we want to be.’ ”

One night during the visit, Mr. Williams, a 68-year-old retired accountant, started looking at Andalusia home listings online. He saw a house he liked, he contacted the agent, and within a week the Williamses were in contract to buy the three-bedroom, single-story house for $1.17 million. “It just felt right,” said Ms. Williams.

The Williamses didn’t look at any other communities in the area, in part because the Tooheys were in Andalusia.

“It’s nice to know somebody when you’re going to a new city,” said Ms. Williams, adding that the Tooheys were able to introduce them to other people in the neighborhood. “We had an instant kind of an ‘in.’ ”

Since then, several other families from Winchester have also purchased property at Andalusia.

Moving in near friends sometimes requires having uncomfortable conversations.

Mike Osborn and Brian Tart are longtime friends who purchased homes next door to each other at the full-service Giralda Place condominium in downtown Coral Gables, Fla.

Mr. Osborn, a 73-year-old retired executive, and his wife, Betty, found the 33-unit building first and suggested it to Mr. Tart, 76, and his wife, who were looking to downsize from their large house nearby. The two couples moved in within a week of each other in 2018. They often carpool to golf and other social events, and take turns having dinner at each others’ apartments.

But shortly after moving in, the two men did have a frank conversation about the potential awkwardness of sharing a wall. Mr. Tart told his neighbor, “ ‘Hey, if we have a dinner party here and you’re not invited, it isn’t because we dislike you,’ ” recalled Mr. Osborn, who paid about $1.6 million for his three-bedroom unit. “I said, ‘You’re exactly right. Don’t feel obligated to include me in everything in your life, and we don’t do it either.’ ”

That kind of open communication, Ms. Kilkenny said, is crucial for friends who plan to move next door or near each other. “You might know somebody on a social level and be good friends, but you don’t know what they’re like to live next door to,” she said.

She suggests that friend groups discuss potential issues in advance, and decide on a forum to resolve any future problems. Frequent communication can help air any grievances before they become major disagreements.

“Just because they’re your friends doesn’t mean it’s all going to be sweetness and light,” she said. “Things will come up—someone’s dog will poop in your yard.”

Write to Candace Taylor at Candace.Taylor@wsj.com