Remembering Fire Island share houses, a Long Island summer tradition   

This is a eulogy for the Fire Island share house.

A generation ago, enterprising 20- and 30-somethings would sign a lease for a beach house for the summer, from at least Memorial Day through Labor Day. Then, through word-of-mouth or advertisements in Manhattan's Village Voice, they’d fill their house with young adults who would buy a "half share" that entitled them to every other weekend, or a "quarter share" that granted a stay every four weeks.

On your scheduled weekend — typically dubbed the A weekend or the B weekend — you were guaranteed a twin bed or bunk bed in a shared bedroom. But even if it wasn’t your turn, many houses allowed members to come anyway and sleep on the floor or a couch or wherever they could find a spot. It wasn’t unusual for 15 to 20 singles from Manhattan and Long Island and Westchester to cram into a three-, four- or five-bedroom house on any given summer weekend on many of the barrier island’s communities, including Kismet, Fair Harbor, Ocean Beach, Corneille Estates, Seaview, Ocean Bay Park, the Fire Island Pines and Davis Park.

"These houses were pretty gross," says Karen Janowsky, 55, of Plainview, who ran a house in Ocean Bay Park and then Ocean Beach for about eight summers. "You would have tops two bathrooms for 14 people. No TVs. Air conditioning? Oh God, no. No one minded."

The fun was the draw, share house fans say. Days were spent on the beach playing volleyball or tanning; then happy hour at the house, maybe with another share house joining in, group dinner at 10 p.m., watch ''Saturday Night Live,'' walk into town to barhop — there are no cars on Fire Island. In Ocean Beach, often considered the "capital" of Fire Island, for instance, barhopping could mean CJ’s for a rocket fuel, Fire island’s signature drink. Or to the Albatross to swing the hanging lights over the bar as Bruce Springsteen’s "Rosalita" played. Maguire’s to finish the night on the dance floor.

"It was a whole scene. Just rinse and repeat; we did it every weekend," says Robin Eileen Bernstein, 66, a former Melville resident who now lives in Manhattan. She was part of a share house in Corneille Estates, which is adjacent to Ocean Beach, from 1985 to 1991, when she was in her late 20s and early 30s. "It was a special time, like an extension of college."

But the traditional Fire Island share house is pretty much dead. "Those days will never come back," says David Fischer, 52, an entrepreneur who grew up in Dix Hills and lives on the Upper East Side. He’s been participating in share houses for 25 years and says he runs one of the few remaining share houses in Ocean Beach.

A SLOW DEATH

The Fire Island share house has endured a slow and painful death over the past two decades, not a sudden dive off a cliff. What has continued to squeeze out the share house culture is a combination of factors, real estate agents and former share house occupants say. Share houses began on the island in the 1960s, had what was arguably their heyday in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, and continued through the early 2000s. But since then, they’ve been on a steady decline.

Superstorm Sandy in 2012 damaged or destroyed many of the rustic beach bungalows that owners rebuilt into luxury homes they didn’t want to rent to groups, and at the same time those renovated homes became more attractive to vacationing families, says Jon Randazzo, who owns two ice cream shops and four restaurants in Ocean Beach. "It’s nowhere as easy as it used to be before Sandy," he says of establishing a group house. In the original homes, "you couldn’t do any harm. You had a couple of drinks, you ran around the house, you knocked something over, nobody would know."

The rise of Airbnb and VRBO has allowed owners to more easily rent their homes by the week for $5,000, $8,000, $10,000, even more if they have a pool, which they found more lucrative than renting for a 12-week season, says real estate broker Sam Wood, who has lived in Kismet year-round for decades and started his own business focusing on shorter-term rentals. Owners can earn three times as much if they rent by the week, he estimates.

Anthony Reese, for instance, who runs Fire Island Getaways R Us, says when he ran a share house in Ocean Bay Park in the late 1990s, he might pay $25,000 for the season for a five-bedroom house with the cost split among 15 or 20 people. Today, he’s a professional property manager and says he will rent an owner's five-bedroom house for $7,500 to $10,000 a week.

Communities also contributed to making it harder to run share houses, Fischer says. The village of Ocean Beach passed a law in 2007 aimed at curtailing homeowners from renting share houses to large unrelated groups, says Joseph DiFrancisco, village administrator.

THEN CAME THE PANDEMIC

During the COVID pandemic, many owners decided to use their beach houses themselves, and limited renting out the homes to two weeks, say, to cover the cost of their annual taxes and insurance, Wood says. Home prices on Fire Island also soared, which jacked up rents and priced out groups trying to keep the cost per person reasonable, he and others say.

Kismet, for instance, Fire Island’s westernmost community, previously known as a bastion of group rental houses, has turned into more of a family community, Wood says. Plenty of young adults still band together with friends to rent a house, but they just come for one vacation week now, not the traditional summerlong A rotation-B rotation, he and others say. Of the 220 houses in Kismet, Wood estimates that fewer than 10 are traditional share houses today. If a 20-something asked for a season-long rental in Kismet, "I definitely wouldn’t have something for them," Wood says.

One place where a version of share houses is still hanging on is in the Fire Island Pines, a predominantly gay community on Fire Island. "Share houses are still a significant, very popular, prevalent thing in the Pines," says Henry Robin, who is president of the Fire Island Pines Property Owners’ Association and is often referred to as the community’s mayor. But while in the past one person would lease a house and fill the whole season, more typically now four individual leaseholders will each rent from a real estate agent and be responsible for filling a quarter share with people entitled to come once every four weeks.

Robin says when he first started coming to the Pines more than 25 years ago, "I don’t think I would have walked down the boardwalk any place else holding my boyfriend’s hand." Many young people still want to be part of the gay community for at least part of the summer, Robin says.

Fire Island share houses have been featured in two reality TV series — in 2006, ABC aired a show called "One Ocean View," with 11 young professionals in a house in Corneille Estates. In 2017, a show simply called "Fire Island" featured six gay men in a house in the Pines and aired on Logo. Both shows lasted only one season.

‘BEST SUMMER EVER’

Person after person interviewed lamented the demise of the Fire Island share house, calling those summers the best of their lives. A Facebook post asking to interview people about their experiences drew more than 240 comments: "Met my husband in Fair Harbor in 1991 at the dock during ‘6ish’ happy hour with red cups in hands." "Tons of bunk beds and comrades. Best summer ever!" "We would race out there on Fridays after work in our 20s."

Every house had its own personality, says Dennis Morea, 74, of Melville, who ran a house in Kismet in the 1980s. In his house, there was always a card game going, he says, whether bridge, hearts, poker, canasta. "We had so much fun, charades, board games," he says.

I always thought of it as Never Never Land. Everybody was a little bit of a Peter Pan. Everybody wanted to play.

- Dennis Morea, 74, of Melville, who ran a house in Kismet in the 1980s

And then there was the nightlife, drinking and dancing. "In the ’80s there was a lot of partying going on," Morea says. "I always thought of it as Never Never Land. Everybody was a little bit of a Peter Pan. Everybody wanted to play. You couldn’t get into too much trouble — no cars. The worst thing that happened to people was they got a little too much [alcohol] in them and on the walk home they fell in the bushes."

Houses would host parties, says Russell Silver, who ran a house in Ocean Beach in his 20s and is now 60 and a mortgage banker living in Bellmore. His house threw themed parties, for instance, Christmas in July, with holiday lights and menorahs. "We had hundreds of people at our house. The blender was always going. It was crazy," he says.

Melissa Pochter, 47, who works in human resources and lives in Woodbury, did a house share in Seaview with 13 other women in 2003 and 2004. "I would pack a suitcase and bring it to the office on Friday and then make my way out to Long Island Friday night. You get so excited. All week you’re looking forward to the weekend," she says. "We would make these spreadsheets of what everyone was bringing." Someone brought the bagels; someone brought the beer.

LOVE AND MARRIAGES

"We were on the same weekends as other people. So, you would see the same people every weekend you were out there," Pochter continues. "You meet them the first weekend and then they’re your friend for the rest of the summer. You go to the restaurants, you go to the bars, you see the same people. You hook up with a guy? You’re going to see him every weekend you’re there for the rest of the summer."

Says Morea: "You knew it was something when they said, ‘Do you want to get together on the mainland?’"

Several people interviewed for this story met their spouses in their share houses — including Sheri Lapidus, 60, of Woodbury. Her husband, Roy, 67, who is in commercial real estate, ran their house in Seaview in the early 1990s. She had a half share, but he was there every weekend. They joke now, she says, about how he started out seeing her on her weekend and another woman on the alternate rotation.

Specialized share houses also existed — some houses consisted of couples, some young families, some single parents who all chipped in for a summer rotation as they aged out of the younger group houses.

Mitch Kronenfeld, 73, of Queens, has been in a share house in some form on Fire Island since 1978. Kronenfeld has run a family share house in Fair Harbor he calls "Kids R Us" since his daughter, Samantha, was 2, and she is now 30. He even attributes 9/11/2001 as a catalyst to the share house demise, as people wanted to buy homes on Fire Island to have an escape if the city became another terrorism target. He’s managed to hang on to his share house, but he almost lost out to a sale last summer. "I’d already come to the conclusion there would be no hope for me finding another," he says. Fortunately, that didn’t happen, and this summer will be his 29th running the ''Kids R Us'' house, in which each family has a bedroom.

‘LIKE SORORITY RUSH’

Here’s how it used to work during the '80s and '90s: After one person leased the house, they’d place an ad in The Village Voice or on Craigslist.

On spring Sundays, gatherings would occur in bars on the Upper East Side or in people’s apartments. Prospective share house members would meet different house members who would bring photos and talk about their house vibe and try to find people they had chemistry with who would be a fit.

"It was like sorority rush," says Simone Weissman, 68, a real estate agent who ran a house in Fair Harbor from 1988 to 2014. She held the gatherings in her Chelsea apartment in Manhattan. "On Sundays I’d get a fresh bunch of tulips and some snacks. The people who had already committed to the house would come every week." People running share houses in the Hamptons might be doing the same thing, interviewees say.

"Those weekends were so valuable to us socially," says Ira Zahler, who ran share houses from 1995 to 2011 in Ocean Beach and Corneille Estates. The shares were also valuable financially — they gave young people an affordable way to spend a lot of the summer on the beach.

In 1987, for instance, Bernstein paid $1,400 for a half share in a house run by her friend Sara Tucker. Says Tucker, now 65, retired from commercial banking and living in Piermont in Rockland County: "We were young, up-and-coming professionals. Even though a lot of us were not making the big bucks back then, we still could set aside money to do a share house."

It was well worth it for the camaraderie, share house participants say.

"Come Labor Day, it was devastating to me," Silver says. "All of a sudden, I’d met all these people I never knew. It was like a whole other world opened up to me." Many tried to keep the party going over the winter — at what were called Perry Parties in the city.

‘IT’S TERRIBLE’

Diane Ehrlich, 57, a freelancer from Forest Hills, Queens, still does a quarter share in one of the few remaining share houses in Ocean Beach — she’s been in share with many of the same people for 20 years. "I think it’s terrible," she says of the end of the share house era. "I think it’s so sad that there’s not a younger generation going to have the same kind of experience. At the same time, as an older person, I do appreciate the quiet."

Like many former share house participants, Rachelle Schuster, 55, of Melville, still spends time on Fire Island, although she rents a house with her family. She met her husband, Reid, when they were both in share houses in 1991. "Whenever I walk into the Albatross, I can’t stop thinking about the moment we would swing the lights," she says.

Beth Rosen, 59, a school psychologist from Old Bethpage, met her husband, Steve, 59, a chief financial officer, in their share house in Ocean Bay Park in 1991, breaking the unwritten rule that you shouldn’t date someone in your share house because if things went south, it could really make the rest of the summer awkward for everyone. They’ve continued to be friends with their fellow share house residents in the house they dubbed "The Vombie Grill" through the decades. The couple now has three daughters in their 20s, and Rosen says she is saddened by the fact her daughters can’t have that share house experience.

"Growing up I thought, ‘When I’m 25, that’s something I would do,’ " says Lexi Rosen, 24, who works in consulting in Manhattan. "I definitely wish that this was a thing. It would be a lot of fun."

By Beth Whitehouse

beth.whitehouse@newsday.comBethWhitehouse1

Beth Whitehouse writes about families, parenting and great things to do with the kids on Long Island. She’s been a Newsday editor and shared a 1997 Newsday staff Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800.