Year Round Waterfront Living - Moultonborough

[mswlogo]

Originally Posted by winnipiseogee

Don't listen to all the haters. We moved up to the lakes region over a decade ago to start our family. We've now got elementary aged kids and feel that raising our kids up here is one of the best things we could have done. We have lots of friends who are doing/have done the same and almost all of them feel incredibly blessed to be raising kids in a place that others only get to visit a few weeks a year.

I will say, we started on the water and it was hard. It gets depressing when everyone leaves and its hard to go to work when all your neighbors are having fun on vacation.

We moved to a year round neighborhood off the water and bought a very small seasonal cabin in a water access community. Its the best of both worlds. We get to be a part of the year round neighborhood this time of year and have a separate set of friends to get excited about in the summer. Our kids absolutely love it. And the cost of the two houses is still much less than a nice year round house on the water.

Its funny but I know at least half a dozen families who do the same thing. Everyone from away thinks we are nuts for having a vacation home in the same town as your primary residence. But we all joke that I don't know how you'd enjoy a vacation house when you have a 2+ hour traffic filled drive every time you wanted to visit and every-time you needed to go home.

You did exactly what most are saying and we had the fore thought to advise the OP to skip making the lake front your only home on the water with kids. Which is what they asked.

Not one person said it would be inadvisable off the water.

Also I couldn't make enough money to own water front without a 2 hr commute. But things are now changing with more work from home options. And so is supply and demand because of it. Maybe we'll see more full time on the water.

[tis]

Originally Posted by mswlogo

You did exactly what most are saying and we had the fore thought to advise the OP to skip making the lake front your only home on the water with kids. Which is what they asked.

Not one person said it would be inadvisable off the water.

Also I couldn't make enough money to own water front without a 2 hr commute. But things are now changing with more work from home options. And so is supply and demand because of it. Maybe we'll see more full time on the water.

I think more people did stay this winter than ever before.

[Biggd]

Originally Posted by tis

I think more people did stay this winter than ever before.

We had a couple of snow birds in my neighborhood that didn't go to Florida this year. I'm sure there were many more seeing how Florida has been a Covid hotbed all winter and many in Florida don't take it seriously.

[gwhite13]

Just viewing the Daytona500 today, one can see 28k of 30k allowed in without masks. That's exactly why so many have stayed here for winter. FL...most twisted state in the union.

[Billy Bob]

Originally Posted by gwhite13

Just viewing the Daytona500 today, one can see 28k of 30k allowed in without masks. That's exactly why so many have stayed here for winter. FL...most twisted state in the union.

As a Florida resident and business owner who spends summer only at the lake my first reaction to your post was that you were insulting our home state and people. However , after thinking about it it’s not insulting it's 100 % accurate.
Coming down this winter thinking restaurants, events, the parks will be attempting any reasonable mask wearing or distancing is a total pipe dream . If it was up to our Governor events would be at 100 % and all the visitors would leave and take Covid home with them . No real government attempt to make things safe. Of course the result is the locals don’t go out to events , restaurants and parks and it’s killing the service economy.

[Descant]

Originally Posted by tis

I think more people did stay this winter than ever before.

Right. Reluctance to get on a plane or to stay in motels while driving back and forth is a big factor.

On the other hand, my daughter works 100% remote and instead of a weekend, rented a ski house for a month. Kids go to school remote and hubby who has to be onsite, comes up weekends. A lot of this will change back when kids go back to school in person.

[mneck1814]

Though I have never lived in Moultonborough full-time, I have spent all of my summers in town and I would be happy to raise a family there. As far as the remoteness, it really isn’t any different than much of northern New England, except that it comes with all of the variety and activities that the lake offers!

We have several friends who are locals and have raised their families in town. Through these friends we have seen a different side of life in Moultonborough and at times have been extremely envious that they get to enjoy the lake 7 days a week! The quiet winters seem to bother the people with kids less as the kids lives seem to naturally be busier. They all seem to agree that September and October are truly some of the best months to live at the lake with virtually no crowds.

If you’re looking for a neighborhood full of families and kids then you may struggle to find that, but I am guessing you already know that. In the vicinity of our house on the end of Moultonboro Neck, I would say maybe 10% are year round residents and of that, maybe half have kids. It certainly is the minority, but I can tell you the houses with kids that are on the water, always seem to have a group of friends around. Who wouldn’t want to hang out at the friend’s house with a beach, boat, etc.? Even if you have private waterfront, the public beach can be a great place to meet people. You can usually tell the locals because they are arriving when the vacationers are packing up for the day.

As for rentals, it’s hard to tell. I don’t think there are particular neighborhoods that have more rentals than others. Fireworks can get annoying, but, Moultonborough has adopted a fireworks ordinance that seems to help. Honestly, the neighbors I have found to be the rowdiest were not renters, they are the children or grandkids of the owners. Our next door neighbor has a family compound of 6 cottages and they rent out 3 of them. The same renters return year after year and are always kind and courteous. I think vacation renters tend to get a bad rap because of the few who are disrespectful. Who among us doesn’t rent a vacation house when we travel elsewhere from time to time? I am always respectful when I do, and I like to believe most others are as well.

A few times I have commuted to work from the lake for a week or so, the commute is long, but getting “home“ from work and going on a boat ride or kayaking seems like such a treat!!

If what you’re looking for in “community” is a town of good people enjoying life in a beautiful corner of the world, with quality schools, then I think you’d be very happy in Moultonboro.

[Descant]

I have a friend who does rentals. Different town. The Selectman agreed with to allow rentals with stipulations as to max number of people, no events (weddings, graduations etc.) no fireworks. It works fine. Maybe the M'boro, T'boro W'boro BOS needs to be brought on board? They could even make an exception for July 3 and 12/31. If you're resident, it should be easy to ask the BOS.

[MAXUM]

Originally Posted by Descant

I have a friend who does rentals. Different town. The Selectman agreed with to allow rentals with stipulations as to max number of people, no events (weddings, graduations etc.) no fireworks. It works fine. Maybe the M'boro, T'boro W'boro BOS needs to be brought on board? They could even make an exception for July 3 and 12/31. If you're resident, it should be easy to ask the BOS.

It amazes me this is OK with anyone. Since when does the BOS have jurisdiction do this? I have not found anything that indicates they do.

I can see this being something the town would throw on a ballot for the residents to decide.

[Descant]

Originally Posted by MAXUM

It amazes me this is OK with anyone. Since when does the BOS have jurisdiction do this? I have not found anything that indicates they do.

I can see this being something the town would throw on a ballot for the residents to decide.

I guess I misspoke. He told me "the Town" and I translated that to BOS. It should have been ZBA for a non-conforming use in a residential/current use area.

[MAXUM]

Originally Posted by Descant

I guess I misspoke. He told me "the Town" and I translated that to BOS. It should have been ZBA for a non-conforming use in a residential/current use area.

Ah see that would make a little more sense in that I believe the BOS can interject something like this when it comes to zoning decisions, application of or enforcement of existing measures to a specific situation.

What you had originally mentioned sounded more like a town ordinance by proclamation of the BOS and I always thought those were voted on by ballot - unless it is some sort of temporary emergency situation where they may have that authority.

I'd think that existing zoning would put some governance over reasonable private property use. I will say that it doesn't matter what time of year it is when it comes to fireworks. There was a really nice display off MB Neck Saturday night. I am fairly convinced there are some serious pyros over there as we've had plenty of spectacular shows looking across from BI.