The 'HoWse' at Writer's Cove

The mansion's just over 12,000 square feet of livable space, has an expansive front lawn leading to the water's edge, and contain's an out-building that's a combination of boathouse/tool shed and caretaker's quarters.


The South end of the home has four bedrooms upstairs and four down. The the center of the home is dedicated to common living areas, upstairs containing the 16-seat theater with projection television and bar/lounge with mini-kitchen. The central downstairs is home to the library, formal dining room, a massive living room with stone fireplace, a  commercially-equipped kitchen with four tables and 16 chairs for informal meals, snacks, and 24-hour caffeinated relaxation.


Her personal living areas, upstairs and down, command the North end of the house (over 3,000 square feet and fully self-contained, with the owner's private entrance and garage just off her kitchen at the rear). Along with a spacious master suite and sitting room, there are 3 guest bedrooms opening onto the wraparound veranda. There's also a very small bedroom North of the kitchen, should a housekeeper need to stay overnight.


Mrs. C, the owner, has set the housekeepers and me abuzz at the news that Brittany, her kids and husband will be coming in for a week's stay (about which we're all excited), to occupy the family suite downstairs on the South wing of what's become known as "Writer's Cove" by locals.


I'm tired from the day's mowing and edging and blade sharpening, sitting on my small porch off my living quarters that puts me about 100 yards off from the South end where, late nights, I often sit to smoke, sip a little bourbon or tequila, and softly strum 'Homer,' my guitar-of-choice most times.


Michael's living quarters (the only other 'permanent' resident besides Mrs C and me), are comprised of a 2-room suite on the upstairs corner, with commanding coastal and southern views, and a doorway to the veranda off of his sitting room/library.


Tonight, I see his lights on into the wee hours, watch him pace across the lighted window, sometimes heading out to the veranda to smoke and peer at the sea from the handrail, and I know he can't see me because of the distance and darkness, but I know his wheels are turning, his mind working, before he flips the butt down onto the yard and rushes in to resume writing and writing and writing what has to be the sequel to his bestseller.


Mrs. C's place could easily adorn the cover of Coastal Living and the only reason I think this place hasn't done so is that she's designed the interior for creature-comfort furniture and motif rather than opulence it could easily sustain and warrant with any other owner. I like most of the statuary and paintings that reflect her own tastes as well as subjects she feels might bring muses screaming at guests.


The writers come and go, some at her invitation, others by written requests that either trigger an 'application,' requiring the writer's bio and publishing history (with samples) or generate a kindly worded, personal 'form letter' offering the prospective visitor to consider other options. Many rejections are from wanna-be writers whose best sentences could only come from a felonious assaults on persons or property. Then again, we've hosted some authors and magazine writers of respectable renown.


Mrs. C's business plan's pretty astute, having a sliding-scale of fees for 'guests' ranging from simply the cost of their meals and daily housekeeping needs, to market-based weekly rates with a maximum of 2 weeks per 'visit' and only longer by special arrangement. She's toying with the idea of workshops, which I dread. I have to concede she hasn't been wrong yet, I mean, just to look around at all of this. My God....


Expenses are offset by marketing, with realtors and ads in bridal magazines for garden weddings--even lavish corporate and private parties at "Writer's Cove." Weddings find the bride, groom, and their respective parents staying in the North wing's accommodations.


She arranges the airport transportation, photography/videography, caterers, awnings and chair and table rentals, all the reception details for the central part of the house, and gets commissions from the vendors she employs for the picturesque nuptials and if the wedding party opts-out of using her vendors, they, too, can happily search for another venue that I would humbly say is lesser than what Mrs. C always provides for a fair dollar. The fairy-tale weddings she orchestrates are as captivating as her writing.


I don't spend as much time as you'd think in the main house. My digs and life out here with the guard dogs and crickets and squirrels are as much as any man could need or want in his waning years. Mrs. C's happy to let me continue supervising the kennel and cadre of gardeners (because I'm bilingual) it takes to keep Writer's Cove postcard-perfect...when I'm not down on our her little dock, fishing, that is....


Blistering heat of midsummer finds the house less visited than other months, and I get more fishing time in, as Michael takes week-long jaunts to wherever. Mrs. C. entertains her kids and grandchildren, while the other ten months find the the house humming along smoothly like the efficient manor it is, bed 'n breakfast style, save for the 'commercial' bookings that put us all on hyperdrive to provide manna which sustains us in U.S. currency form.


Holidays are celebrated in style, here, and the house is always packed. Meals force the 22-seat formal dining table to be extended beyond the massive, double doors into the main library which contains hundreds of books, a couple internet research stations, and a locked display case with autographed 1st editions from the more accomplished who have stayed here.


Her demands are always reasonable, on Michael because of his writing ethic, odd hours and attraction of paying guests' desire to rub elbows with 'El Plumo Hogar' ('the house pen' nickname I've asssigned him that he likes no better than my references to his living space as 'Casita del Camiso Amarillo,' little house of the yellow shirt). Demands on me are simple because of my meager contributions to minimizing her management headaches, a role she says buys her time to write and enjoy what she's provided to us ('my resident Odd Couple,' she calls us!) and the select few fortunate enough to encounter this remarkably talented and gracious woman.


The closest thing I ever had to a run-in with her was over her casually sharing that she thought she'd build a pool and pool house with showers and changing area. I pleaded that, with an ocean-front estate, she might consider clearing some rock and dumping sand to let people romp in the surf. I told her I'd rather scoop polo pony poop on my hands 'n knees than fuss with all the headaches of a pool. She shut me right up, one day, with her praiseworthy sense of humor, "You jealous I'll get a pool-boy, big guy!?" She decided against the pool, improved what we now call a beach, but did built a 'spa room' so people could enjoy everything that goes along with it, e.g. wet bar, music system and mood lighting.


Mornings, the day housekeeper prepares self-served continental breakfast in the kitchen's dinette area before beginning her housekeeping chores. The P.M.-shift housekeeper doubles as a cook for supper and fixes a pre-planned menu accommodating her and Michael's tastes but, on Sundays, a formal dinner with Michael and me is mandatory attendance (paying guest are welcome) and we all chip-in do the cooking or barbecue, weather, of course, permitting.


Sunday mornings, Mrs. C likes to bounce down the lane with me in the utility pickup to attend early Mass in town with breakfast afterward. I hold those occasions with special regard but nothing tops our after-supper habit when the three of us retire to the upstairs 'grand veranda' and muse over writing, the past week or commingle with guests to discuss just about anything--all, while sipping cognac and sharing laughs, oblivious to everything beyond this enviable and idyllic existence.


Of late, Mrs C has had a suitor (Todd, retired golf pro) whose company we enjoy and banter we find stimulating. but I think he's more a creature-comfort and bed companion for Mrs. C, rather than something long-term ending in a commitment. Her private life remains private, out of scruitiny, and beyond the bounds of comment or criticism from anyone--and this observation is already at the limit--for the sakes good manners, respect, and true care for my employer/mentor/muse whom I find a daily blessing.


Unsolicited offers sail in to buy everything Mrs. C. has realized here, and her charm isn't lost in polite declines, verbalizing words to the effect that there isn't anyone who possesses any combination of resources, asset that it would take to own her dream-come-true. Her dream, now, her reality.


Her vision-become-reality was to have a writer's retreat, offering solace and comfort to those creating literature in a world that finds great writing relegated to websites that pay nothing, have no shelf life, or system of global recognition for hearts and lives being dedicated to the written word. That retreat would be called the "HoW," House of Writers. But because of it's breathtaking setting, everyone in the area nicknamed the place "Writer's Cove." Two magazine articles about Mrs C's beloved HoW cost her over $150,000 in beefed-up security:  fencing, cameras, and I don't think that figure includes both of the electric gates, main and utitilty.


She discovered Michael online. Oddly enough he's my age but a New York teacher who expatriated to Mexico and took a position at an elite academy for Mexican children to learn English. They learned English as he taught them  creative writing. On the side, Michael was hosting websites of internet 'flash' writers (short fiction). In the scraps of leftover time, he was posting stories to websites devoted to anthologies or guest writers or writer-hobbyist sites. He began a book, came to HoW for its finish, and found the national praise his work's always deserved.


Mrs. C invited him to become the first and--to date--only artist in residence at Writer's Cove. I don't count because I say so. Either of them write rings around me on my best day at the keys.


Income from Michael's first book, critically acclaimed and complex, brought untold money to him, yet he seems content to live here and has convinced me he'll stay should his second book brings millions; he's found himself, and his voice, here, again, something sacrosanct beyond any price to change.


I negotiated an hourly 'wage' with Mrs. C. at $2.50, listing my income for tax purposes as received from duties whose wages generate 'tips.' I have a little bankroll invested that draws income, supplemented by my social security. Mrs. C feels good about paying me something. I have pride that I'm not mooching or a charity case, and even enjoy putting a squeegee to the windows although my acre-wide ass on scaffolds never fails to scare the be-Jesus out of Mrs. C.


My next big deal is to see if Mrs. C. will let me buy a 20-foot sailboat to keep at our dock so that I can flutter me and some of the guests in the gusts of calmer waters on the many glorious days we enjoy, here (a tip-generating revenue scheme/stream she'll soon figure out!).


I soon must confess to her that I let one of the guard dogs ("Misty," Doberman) sleep with "Scooter" (my Weimaraner) and Writer's Cove is going to have babies in a few months. I'll attempt to justify as regenerating and invigorating the security staff and continuing to provide for her best interests, to which she'll probably laugh and yell "Bullshit!," followed by a demand to name the pups. At hearing the news, there will be no discussion or decision necessary as to the disposition of the pups. They'll stay, and I'll oversee expansion of the kennel for the three Dobermans ("Tex," "Misty" and "Judo") and my Weimaraner, "Krebbs" (after a TV sitcom character of the '50s, "Maynard G. Krebbs,"  a beatnick portrayed by Bob Denver on the sitcom "Dobie Gillis").


That (phone) was main house, asking why I'm not already off to town to pick up the grocery order. "I was writing" is always an acceptable explanation for delays, here, because that's what we do:  we write.


[Updates: I get the boat as long as long as I promise not to drown some folks from her old 6S days and with another proviso: I'm the burgers 'n dogs grill cook for what will become an annual event--she's decided we'll host a picnic for our town's Special Olympics volunteers, athletes and parents.; and, I was right about her naming claim on the puppies, of which we had five. bearing dog tags with variants of Mrs. C's favorite authors' names: "Augusten" ('Gus'!), "Kahlil" (hate it), "Sedaris" (wtf?!...Dairy? Sed?), "Emma" (better!), and "Leonard" (I can live with 'Leo' or 'Len'). We've just received Brittany's autographed 1st edition of her sizzling and steamy Southern-voiced romance novel. It will take its place of honor in the library (next to Amy's). She included a nice card that states she got inspiration for her book while here, and announced that she'll soon be a grandmother]