Manufactured
              Housing

 New Hampshire

The Resident:

An Interview with Peter Bartlett

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We had a big, old 12-room colonial in Concord and due to ill health I just couldn't keep up with it — all the maintenance it needed. It was just time in our life to go to something smaller, all on one floor.

And we looked at a number of different options — buying another house with everything on one floor, having one built, or any number of things.

We discovered the park (Freedom Hill) and just kind of fell in love with the place. We bought our house here in 1989.

If someone had told me 12 or 13 years ago that I'd be living in a park like this, I'd have told them they were crazy. But we love it, and it was the best move we ever made. We lived in Concord most of our lives.

The Bartletts' home at Freedom Hill.

We sold our other house and paid cash for this one. When we first moved in, we paid a $160 monthly fee to the park.

For Sale
We heard from the owner that the park was for sale. Everyone in the park got a notice from her saying she was putting the park up for sale and a buyer had come forward.

A resident then got in touch with the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund. I understand that she had worked with them at some point. From there, everything just kind of blossomed into forming the Freedom Hill Cooperative, and we put in a bid.

We had three or four meetings with as many people as we could get together in the park. We were trying to form a co-op. We selected an ad hoc board of directors to get this thing going.

And each time we came to a point where we needed to commit ourselves to the Loan Fund, we went back to the entire population and got their support. The co-op was formed that way.

Just a couple of weeks ago, we had the final meeting of the ad hoc committee. They were happy with the way things were going and what we had done. It was very gratifying. The people in the park voted that the ad hoc committee should stay in office until our September annual meeting. After that, we'll decide where to go from there.

The Loan Fund
If the Loan Fund hadn't been there, particularly Peter Rhoads, we'd still be sitting here trying to discuss how to form an ad hoc committee and get this thing started. They were extremely helpful in guiding us every step of the way. I really can't say enough good things about Peter and his cohorts. We couldn't have done it without them; we really couldn't.

Someone from the Loan Fund was at every directors' meeting. And that was once, twice, sometimes three times a week. They were very, very supportive. As I said, I can't say enough good things about him.

We're holding directors' meetings once a month now and anybody in the park is invited. The Loan Fund says, "If you want us there, we'll be glad to be there." They just bend over backwards for us.

Cost of Living
We're paying $290 a month for rent now. On April 1, it's going up to $320. It had been $290 for the last two or three years, before the co-op.

When we formed the co-op we worked on the premise that the rent would not exceed $320. This was the limit we set, and we're pretty close. We've made our first mortgage payment and it looks pretty good.

Strangely enough, life at the park has changed since we've become a co-op. People just seem to be a lot friendlier. People who were working were in and out at strange hours. Before, you'd see somebody down at the mail house and it was, "Hi," but now it's, "How's it going? Are we still doing all right?" The people are really bending over backwards to make this thing work.

We just got our maintenance committee formed two weeks ago, and we got 13 people who wanted to come out and help. It was, "Hey what can I do?" It's really amazing. There's been more than enough people to get any committee going. People are really behind this 100 percent.

Freedom Hill Residents
My wife and I are both retired. My next-door neighbor is retired and his wife is retiring in June. My neighbors next to them — both he and his wife — are retired. They had been traveling the country for the last 10 or 12 years and using this as a summer place. They had an extremely large fifth-wheel camper that they traveled all over the United States with. During the summer they came back here and during the winter they'd head for the warm country. They're in their 70s now, and we're getting pretty close.

There are two or three firemen who live here. I think one of the town policemen lives in here. There are office people, clerical people, and accountants. The fellow who is handling the accounting end for us is a CPA. He works outside the park and is doing this as a volunteer. There's just a wonderful mix of people. It's really, really surprising. The father of one fellow who just got on the maintenance committee owns a big farm down the road here. He works on the farm. His father, grandmother, and another uncle live on the farm, so he had to find his own house. He lives up here and works the farm. It's just a wonderful mix of people.

We are taking over maintenance of the park. When we bought this place we got some of the park's maintenance machinery. We've gone ahead and had it repaired.

We're talking now about what we're going to do this summer. There are a number of common areas where the park owners used to cut the grass. The park owns a good-size riding lawnmower, and people are saying, "Well, gee, I'll adopt this street. It isn't going to take me any longer to go across the street and do that strip over there." So we're kind of edging towards that.

The social committee is working up a garden committee to take care of flowers in the common areas. The well system has to be checked periodically. I live right across the street from it, so I'm doing that. Everybody is pitching in, doing what they can do.

Living in a Doublewide
We live in a modular house. It came in two sections. There are no wheels or tongue or anything like that. It's a doublewide modular home, 28 x 56 feet. It's what they call a Virginia Home. It has a little breakfast room, a kitchen, a living room, a dining room, a hallway, a first bedroom, a bath, and a master bedroom at the end with a large bathroom attached to it.

It's very, very comfortable here, and extremely easy to heat. If we pay $400 a year to heat it, we're really burning a lot of extra fuel. The furnace (forced hot air) is in the house — in the laundry room. There is no cellar. That's the one thing I wish we had — a cellar.

The house rests on these huge cement pads — they must be 30 inches square — that carry the weight of the house. There are probably three or four feet under the house — room enough to crawl on my hands and knees if I keep my head down. If I want to move the house out of here, I could do it; but I don't think I ever will.

Most of the houses in the park are like ours. When you first come into the park you'll see a few singlewide trailers. This was originally a trailer park, but the owner never really did much of anything with it. They had maybe a dozen units in here, if that many.

Then Walter bought it from the first owner and it went all doublewides. The whole place is completely doublewides now, except those first trailers that were "grandfathered" in. As people leave or sell, they are being taken out and another doublewide is put in.

I think we're down to four or five trailers now. I don't think they're actually on wheels. They're up on blocks, but they could put wheels under them. I think the axles are still there. I know the tongues are still there on some of them, but those could be hauled off without too much trouble.