Passing It On : The Inheritance and Use of Summer Houses

Remi Clignet, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Maryland
This book is a tale of summertimes and their green paradises. Balfe introduces us to the playing...and the rituals...through which relatives are attracted to the same place year in, year out...Balfe's subtle description of familial loves and rivalries is embedded in the best intellectual tradition of classical theorists...[An] analytical as well as stylistic masterpiece.


Book Description
A sociological study of the issues involved in sharing the inheritance of summer houses, Passing It On fills a critical niche in the literature on estate planning. It focuses on the family dynamics involved in sharing real property rather than on the legal issues of estate reduction, with extensive quotes from over 100 respondents, all summer-house heirs, about how they have managed to keep the property in the family over generations.


From the Author
As one of four second-generation heirs to two summer houses, I have used our personal experience as springboard to this inquiry of 125 respondents as to the difficulties - as well as the satisfactions - involved in sharing a vacation home that all hold dear.


About the Author
Judith Huggins Balfe is Professor Sociology at the City University of New York, at two of its units: The College of Staten Island and the Graduate Center. Her many publications focus on the sociology of the arts and culture, in which she examines one of the primary themes of this book: the conflict between price and value, between market forces and what people find most meaningful. In analyzing the connections between these seeming polarities, she draws upon her experience as a co-owner of a summer house in Nantucket -- the basis of this extended study.


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