Any number of Bostonians have a second home in Maine.
But how many have a woman living in that second home?
Attorney Bernard Borman does. On weekends, when he travels from his primary home of Beacon Hill to his vacation home near Fryeburg, Maine, he knows that the lights will be on, the heat will be working, and the woman of the house — Shirley (Shoo) Hale — will either be making dinner or waiting for him to do the same, when he arrives.
She’s the woman of the house all right, but she’s not exactly his woman. Welcome to the 21st Century style of sharing a home — housemates of opposite genders, roughly the same age, who are friends and do not share the bedroom. In fact, Hale has encouraged Borman to bring any of his women friends up to the house, although he has yet to do that.
Borman and Hale met nearly 20 years ago when both were divorced and happened to be living on Beacon Hill. They dated, but drifted apart, lost touch, but never married each other or anyone else. Last March, Hale telephoned Borman with a novel idea of home sharing.
It boiled down to this: You buy a house, let me live in it fulltime, and I’ll renovate it. When we both decide to sell, we go halvsies on the money.
“I needed a new adventure,” says Borman. “A law school roommate had just told me he had Alzheimer’s, and I was shaken and very saddened about this. It made me realize there was not much point in waiting any longer for anything. I welcomed a big change right now, and getting involved in this house was a big change.”
The purchase of this house, by Borman, and the renovation, by Hale, is purely a business deal, both insist. They say it was a perfect undertaking for both of them. Borman, 65, who specializes in real estate law, wanted a second home but was too busy — and not enthusiastic enough — to do any restoration work, and Hale, 55, wanted a primary home and was willing to restore it: (She restores old houses or builds new reproductions for a living.)
Their written agreement provided that Hale do the house-hunting, Borman provide the funds to buy and restore it, Hale provide all the furniture and do the rehabbing, and at the end of two years, they reassess the situation; if either one wants to sell it, they sell it.
“Basically,” Hale says, “the final agreement states that Bernie does exactly what I say, immediately, no matter how hard it is or how much it costs — the secret of a good house share.” Hale found the house, an 1820 farmhouse with four bedrooms. Just two weeks after the closing in July, she secured a carpenter for the heavy work who almost immediately pulled down the front of the house in which Victorian bay windows had been installed, and restored it to its original Federal front with small paned windows. She scoured the local dumps and antique stores for old shutters and outdoor furniture, and painted the interior rooms herself.
“Sometimes it seems as though all she’s done all day is go to the store for a Coke, or paint her toenails, but at nightfall I’ll look around and a room will be newly painted, exterior shutters hung, and firewood stacked,” says Borman. During this winter’s recent ice storm in Maine, Borman called Hale to check on her and found that the house was without power for five days. “When I finally got through,” Borman says, “I found that not only was she perfectly self-sufficient, using her woodstove and drinking Coke instead of water, but she was out helping the men who came to clean up the broken trees from the yard.”
Though he grouses about the expenses (“she’s supposed to talk to me before she does the work and she doesn’t always do that”), Borman admits that “she’s made the outside quite beautiful while returning it to something like its original style.” They differ in their opinions on the interior. Hale restored the interior of the house as she does with all her work — “I like them to look like paintings you can walk into, to be beautiful and evocative and peaceful,” she says. Says Borman: “That exquisite room isn’t comfortable. I want a seat for two in front of the fire.” Hale has relented with one comfortable wing chair for reading.
He began to drive north to his new home on weekends last July, ostensiblyto enjoy the view of the White Mountains from the porch, the swimming at the tiny lakeside beach, fishing, boating, golf and hiking. “Instead,” he recounts, “I’ve been scraping shutters, painting garage doors, stripping wallpaper, mowing the two acres of lawn, planting flowers or cooking good stuff I bring from Savenor’s.”
Borman, who, in his off-attorney hours, is food critic for the Beacon Hill Weekly, is a fine cook, but Hale has an admittedly unsophisticated palate and does not fully appreciate his gourmet endeavors. “I like anything as long as it has cheese melted on top,” says Hale, who drinks a Coke for breakfast every morning.
