Workplace: Paradise

Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2005 By SALLY S. STICH
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Subscriber Cherie Hanks, 54, has been a property caretaker since 2001, when she moved to Colorado to be near her four grown children. Her first position came about by chance, after she wandered into something called the P.E.O. Chapter House in Cheyenne Canyon, near Colorado Springs. "I was curious about it," she says, "and discovered it was a retirement home for older members of the Philanthropic Educational Organization, a nonprofit devoted to promoting higher education for women." Though a small staff took care of the grounds and meals, the house manager was looking for someone to live on-site. Hanks signed on, and for the next three years, she lived in her own small cottage, created special events for the residents, filled in when the cook was gone and received $1,300 a month in pay.

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The appeal of caring for the property of others is as varied as the people who take those positions. For Don Davison, 72, a retired banker in Knowlton, Quebec, the decision was strictly financial. "I can rent my condo, which is in a resort area, for three months and make a chunk of change that will help me overcome inflation, since my pension isn't indexed," Davison says. Still, he needed someplace to live for three months. The solution: he took a position as summer house manager at his ski club at Mont Tremblant, in eastern Canada, where he lives rent-free in exchange for greeting guests at the 43-bed lodge and making sure they follow house rules.

Bob and Camille Armantrout, 46 and 50, respectively, had very different motives when they started caretaking in 1996. "We both hated the noise and bustle of the car culture," says Bob, a former general manager of a factory in Virginia. "We wanted to be somewhere where there is plenty of fresh air, animals nearby and time to think our own thoughts."

Nine years ago, they sold their home and possessions and headed to Belize for their first caretaking position, running a four-room lodge where they had once vacationed. Last December they moved farther south, to Little Corn Island, off the coast of Nicaragua, where they run a 13-room hotel, Casa Iguana, on seven acres. They work 14-hour days seven days a week, but they enjoy a car-free island, magnificent wildlife and pesticide-free oranges, tangerines and grapefruit picked right before they're eaten.

If that sounds like a perfect retirement gig, caretakers are quick to point out that it's not all bucolic bliss. "Some property owners want servants, not caretakers," says Keith Cliver, 53, who with his wife Emily Moddelmog, 37, currently caretakes at the Oasis, a bird sanctuary in a former pecan orchard in Benson, Ariz. "We worked at an estate in Las Vegas where the owner eventually got rid of all the help and wanted the two of us to do everything 24/7." They quit shortly thereafter.

Caretaking often doesn't come with benefits. Cliver and his wife have worked for owners who provided health insurance and for others who didn't. They are currently waiting to get it through the Oasis, but meanwhile they are on their own.