By Paris Achen
Since Kendall Maynard’s earliest recollection, Virginia Beach, or “Ginger Beach” as she called it, has been a refuge of fun and relaxation where her family has made nearly 40 years of memories together.
Family photos and film reels show Kendall and her sister, “Clay,” playing together on the beach in the late 1960s, their skin kissed by the sunshine, hair blowing in the ocean breeze, and joy radiating from their youthful faces.
In 1984 when Kendall was in college, her parents, Richard and Laura Cavedo, decided to buy their own vacation house in Virginia Beach, giving the family a permanent base in the oceanfront city where the Chesapeake Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean.
Built in 1930, the four-bedroom house was part of the original Cavalier Shores district named for a large hotel, the Cavalier, that opened in 1927. Kendall’s parents spent much of their spare time renovating the home and creating a place that family members and guests would look forward to visiting.
During the next 20 years, the family spent wonderful vacations together at the home. Each June, the family gathered at the house to celebrate Kendall and Clay’s birthdays, which were less than four weeks apart. Later, after Kendall and her sister started their own families, they brought their children to the beach house to continue the tradition.
When the Cavedos or other relatives weren’t using the home, they offered it as a vacation rental to other families and groups to help cover the cost of renovations and maintenance of the property. Laura’s dream was to keep the house in the family over the generations, Kendall said.
Passing On a Family Tradition
In 2004, Kendall’s mother, Laura, became terminally ill with cancer. At the time, the house in Virginia Beach was solely in Laura’s name. The family learned that the house would be considered part of her estate and subject to hefty federal and state estate taxes when she passed away.
In a bid to keep the house in the family, Kendall obtained power-of-attorney to add her father’s name to the deed, so that Richard would own the house outright at the time of Laura’s death without having to pay the estate taxes.
After Kendall’s mother died, her father wanted her to manage the vacation rental. On the advice of a friend who was an attorney and in order to simplify inheritance, Richard, Kendall and Clay formed the Flying Eagle Limited Partnership, named in honor of Richard’s long career as a pilot.
“My sister and I each had a share that my dad had gifted us, and my dad had a share,” Kendall said.
But just three years after Laura’s death, tragedy struck the family again when Kendall’s sister and two nieces died in a car accident. Clay’s estranged husband inherited her share of the limited partnership, and Kendall had to buy back Clay’s shares in order to keep the house under family ownership.
Precious Memories
Kendall said the loss of her loved ones in such close succession made the house at Virginia Beach, and the fond memories they made together there, all the more precious.
“I love being here because we have had so many good times here,” Kendall said.
Since taking over management of the house, Kendall has continued offering it as a summer rental through Pyle Reality. In 2018, she started accepting Airbnb guests.
She said she enjoys hosting guests and making them feel welcome and comfortable in “Ginger Beach,” and it allows her to cover some of the house’s expenses and maintain the property for her family.
Virginia Beach officials recently started regulating short-term rentals. Some of the regulations have made the process of operating a vacation rental more complicated, but a pending proposal particularly concerned Kendall. It would curb some homeowners’ very ability to use their homes as vacation rentals by allowing short-term rentals only in certain residential areas of the city.
Kendall voiced her concern to the Virginia Beach Planning Commission via a letter on Feb. 1 and remarks at a public hearing on Feb. 10. Even though Kendall’s family home would be exempt under the proposed regulations, she felt it was important to speak out on behalf of other property owners.
“Personally, I am grandfathered in so it’s not like I have a dog in the fight,” she said, “but I feel bad for all of these people who want to use their homes as short-term rentals and like myself, also want stay in their homes, and are being denied.”
Kendall’s house, and other vacation rentals, have been a particularly welcome refuge for families during the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing isolated family gatherings where exposure to the virus can be limited.
Tatiana, one of her guests who held a family gathering at the house in May 2020, wrote in a review that “Kendall has created a safe harbor for those who want to temporarily forget about world problems, relax and have a wonderful time.
“The house shines with cleanliness, which is especially important during the 2020 pandemic.”
Another family whose members were spread around the U.S. met at Kendall’s home in Virginia Beach for Christmas in 2020.
“Kendall,” one of the family members wrote in a note at the end of their stay, “your living room will forever be memorialized in our family archives. Happy 2021.”
Space to Share
Vacation rentals also help owner families like Kendall’s to keep and maintain vacation homes whose walls contain memories and traditions spanning multiple generations.
On a practical level, vacation rentals give families flexibility, Kendall said. For instance, when she was going through a divorce, she was able to move into the house while still renting out parts of it to vacationers. When her daughter-in-law was studying for a master’s degree in nearby Norfolk, she and Kendall’s son were able to move in temporarily while they looked for an apartment. If the home had been a long-term rental rather than a short-term rental, that kind of flexibility would not have been possible, Kendall noted.
Kendall’s father, Richard, who is 93 and lives in North Carolina, continues to visit the house in Virginia Beach every year to see family members and see what Kendall has done with the place.
He recently sent some old family photographs and film reels to a company that converted them into digital form. When the materials came back, Kendall said she was delighted to find footage of her, her sister and other relatives playing at Virginia Beach. She said she had never seen some of the footage before then.
Reliving those memories has reinforced Kendall’s hope of one day having grandchildren who will stay at the house and passing the house down to her two sons.
“I would love for this home to stay in the family,” Kendall said. “That’s part of why I’m trying to maintain it – to keep it in the family.”