Home Buying

Vacation-home owners find very different Lake Winnipesaukee in winter

This traditional summer vacation spot is increasingly a four-season destination, luring downhill and cross-country skiers, snowmobilers, and ice fishing enthusiasts to its wintry landscape.

NH Lakes Region Tourism Association

October 19, 2017

6 minutes to read

A clear blue sky, the hum of distant motors on the lake, anglers sizing up their catch — it sounds like any summer day on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire — but it’s the middle of February. Snowmobiles, not boats, dart across the ice, while the bundled up stand right on top of the frozen lake, hoping to haul up a winner for the Great Meredith Rotary Ice Fishing Derby.

This traditional summer vacation spot is increasingly a four-season destination, enticing downhill and cross-country skiers, snowmobilers, and ice fishing enthusiasts to its wintry landscape. “Our second-home buyers today, they really want to use the place on a year-round basis,’’ said Rob Wichland, owner and broker at RE/Max Bayside in Meredith and Laconia, N.H.

Tonia Cowan/Globe staff

Source: Trulia.com/Median sales price in these communities from May 24 to Aug. 23.
(Waterfront properties, of course, will be more expensive.)

“It’s beautiful during the summer, but in the winter it’s a different kind of beautiful,’’ said Wendy Moores of Pepperell. She and her husband, Bob, have owned a lakefront home in Alton, N.H., for 17 years. “Our kids grew up skiing at Gunstock, ice fishing, playing hockey on the ice.’’

The rotary club’s annual ice fishing derby, in particular, is “a pretty huge event,’’ Moores said — one that’s become a family tradition. “We go out as a family to fish on the lake in our bob house, cook up a delicious breakfast of sausage and eggs.’’

When the ice is safe, they snowmobile over to Meredith Bay, headquarters of the statewide contest. “When you go down to Meredith, there are all these little bob houses in the bay, and they have little fire pits around so people can warm up, and there are vendors,’’ she said. “It’s a big celebration.’’

The contest pays out thousands of dollars in prizes and attracts ice fishing fans from as far as Texas and California. “Last year we had over 4,600 participants from 23 different states and the District of Columbia,’’ said Don Trudeau, derby chairman. “And that’s kind of on the low side,’’ he added, given the dangerously mild temperatures last winter.

Anglers try their luck in the annual Great Meredith Rotary Ice Fishing Derby. – Meredith Rotary Club

The derby brings so much bustle to Meredith that Theresa Tangney no longer ventures into town that weekend. Tangney’s been going to Lake Winnipesaukee her whole life: Her grandparents bought a home in Meredith in the 1970s, and her parents followed suit in 2001. “When we were young, my dad and grandfather both loved snowmobiling and ice fishing, so I spent a bunch of time out on the ice,’’ Tangney said. “Some of my fondest memories of my grandfather are from the times we spent exploring the lake by snowmobile.’’

Tangney said she and her husband, Brian, who live in Braintree with their two children, now visit the family summer home a few times each winter: around Christmas, over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, and during school vacation week in February. “We like to go tubing at Gunstock or Loon, both of which are super accessible from Meredith.’’

Tangney also likes to scout out the quirky events that pop up around the lake in wintertime — “like the bed races on Alton Bay,’’ she said. Yes, one of the highlights of Alton Bay’s Winter Carnival requires contestants to create a sled out of a bed — attaching skis or runners to the bottom — and see who can push a single rider atop their slumbering sleigh across the ice the fastest. Helmets are advised.

What’s more, the race actually takes place on the only Federal Aviation Administration-approved iceport in the lower 48. The waters of Alton Bay are known as a seaplane port in summer, “but during the winter, when the New Hampshire winds blow and the temperatures dip below freezing, Alton Bay morphs into what pilots know as B18,’’ said Charley Valera, author of “My Father’s War: Memories From Our Honored WWII Soldiers.’’

Valera said he and a few fellow pilots like to fly up from Massachusetts, touch down on the glassy ice runway — part novelty, part aviation challenge — and get breakfast or lunch in town before heading back. “Usually the iceport is only open for about three to five weeks around February, and some years it doesn’t even open because the ice doesn’t thicken enough.’’

There’s more than just skiing, ice fishing, and cold-weather curiosities to keep you busy, though. The New England Pond Hockey Classic — a tournament held on Meredith Bay since 2010 — drew nearly 2,000 participants on 270 teams from around the country last winter. “We like to snowmobile over there,’’ Moores said. “It’s just beautiful; it’s a winter wonderland.’’

Snowmobiling is a winter pastime in its own right. Wichland said some second-home buyers are avid snowmobilers who make use of the area’s extensive trail system.

“The lake is really small on a snowmobile,’’ said Greg Moores, Wendy and Bob Moores’s adult son. “It’s three times faster than on a boat.’’ You can take a snowmobile to most lakeside restaurants, too. “There’s a bunch of bars you can snowmobile right up to,’’ he added.

But, Greg Moores cautioned, make sure you go with someone who’s lived through his or her share of Winnipesaukee winters. “The lake during the winter is not something you should just get on a snowmobile and just go exploring. You really need to know the lake and know where the safe spots are, because people die every year.’’

For the ice-averse, indoor entertainment can increasingly be found year-round, too. In Meredith, the Winnipesaukee Playhouse hosts live theater productions, and snow can’t stop the blues and jazz spilling out of Pitman’s Freight Room in Laconia, a BYOB venue in a converted depot.

A few of Tangney’s favorite restaurants and shops are open year-round, including Lago, a “cozy Italian restaurant right on the water,’’ Hermit Woods Winery, and Innisfree Bookshop. “Meredith usually does some special events around Christmas, like sleigh rides and a night where the shops stay open late at night, which is fun,’’ Tangney added. With white lights strung up through the winter, she said, “it looks pretty magical, especially when there’s fresh snow.’’

The snowy quiet also makes the lake a nice spot to do nothing at all. “It’s the most relaxing place to be in the winter if I’m feeling stressed,’’ Tangney said. “I can totally unplug and cozy up with a good book, and my kids can go crazy in the snow — which there’s never a shortage of.’’

Greg Moores said he enjoys going up in the winter as much as in the summer. “If you go too far it’s crazy cold, so we kind of stick around and have more family time by the fire.’’

Summer still reigns supreme on the water, of course, which means you could conceivably rent out your vacation home a few weeks in the high season to offset the cost, especially if you like the idea of a winter retreat. The Moores rent out their Alton Bay house the entire summer to cover the taxes and stay at a more rustic home on Rattlesnake Island, a property they’ve owned since 1991. You’d have to be a real pioneer to spend winter on the island, Wendy Moores said. “There was one guy on Rattlesnake who stayed out all winter, and he had to have a hovercraft.’’

Don’t expect to fetch much, if anything, renting out your house in the winter, though. Wichland said Bayside’s vacation-rental business is flat-out all summer long, but hits a snowbank after fall foliage season. “We have a couple of pockets, like the ice fishing derby, the pond hockey tournament, where we do some short-term rentals,’’ he said, “but for the most part in the wintertime our vacation-rental business is nonexistent.’’

Before you buy a Lakes Region vacation home with visions of snowy Sundays by the fire, make sure to consider whether it’s a year-round property — or whether converting it would be feasible.

“There are still quite a few three-season cottages for sure, but we’re seeing more and more of them being renovated or torn down and rebuilt into year-round properties,’’ Wichland said.

And, it appears, with good reason. “When it’s winter and you’re socked in by beautiful snow twinkling outside over this gorgeous lake, you play board games and just admire the view and sit around the fire,’’ Wendy Moores said. “It’s absolutely beautiful.’’

Jon Gorey blogs about homes at HouseandHammer.com. Send comments to [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @jongorey. Subscribe to our free real estate newsletter — our weekly digest on buying, selling, and design — at pages.email.bostonglobe.com/AddressSignUp.