At MVP Vacation Homes, our hospitality is an extension of our own home. As a family-owned business, we provide an experience that truly feels like family. Enjoy this special article, written by Karson Paige, recounting her early years at the Spence home.
When I think of home, I’m there again.
I’m there at that little blue house with the red door. I feel my shins bumping along a labyrinth of lawn chairs, beach cruisers, and surfboards – otherwise known as the side yard. “Hey, I’m here,” I call to the air around me, assuming position on the brick stoop that leads up to the wood plank porch. The railing looks cleaner than it did last time I was here. Dan must have put a fresh coat of white paint on it. Before leaning my back against the rail, I reach out with a hesitant fingertip to make sure it’s dry.
Rest.
When the ocean breeze asks my hair for a dance, the smell of salt twirling around reveals it coyly whispered yes. Just as the warm sun gently rocks my eyelids to a close, the chain link fence announces good company has arrived. I open my eyes to see my best friend (most people call her Sarah) arriving home with the last few ingredients for dinner in a brown paper bag. Dinner. My mouth waters at the thought of Rachel’s lemon roasted chicken served with sweet potatoes, Brussels sprouts, and a salad – a Sunday staple around here. Sarah isn’t the slightest bit phased that I’m at her house without notice. It has become a part of me, calling this house, this family, my own. I peer through the open dutch door. In a household of two parents and four kids, there are seven place settings. A seat for me at their table.
I bet you would hardly believe me if I told you how much things have changed since the days we went in and out of that house like it was a revolving door for summer or the nights we took shelter by a crackling fire during the frigid winter…okay it was 65 degrees outside, but, hey, California doesn’t give much material for a story about changing seasons. You’d also probably think I was bluffing if I said that despite the change, so much has remained the same.
I remember when Dan and Rachel told me they were moving to Idaho. It felt like a rug was ripped out from under me, except beneath the rug wasn’t a dusty floor, but a dark hole I would keep falling down forever. They were the people who laid with me on the couch during my battle with depression and were also the first standing on their feet to cheer me on at my dance performances. They taught me to laugh about how I can’t hit a baseball with a bat to save my life, but made me feel like grating cheese was an integral part of dinner preparation that only I, in all of my expertise, could pull off.?? The truth was I just couldn’t be trusted with any other task in the kitchen, though no one ever uttered a word about that.
The Spence’s were my shelter.
I wasn’t the only one devastated to see them go. People kept saying how the town would never be the same without them. What they were really saying was we would never be the same. Naturally, our old friend Nostalgia moved in and we unpacked memories of laughter bouncing off their home’s walls and life-altering conversations ricocheting amongst the walls of our hearts. Meals to both celebrate and comfort. Gatherings around a guitar and harmonica on the porch. Breakthroughs that came during conversations had while repairing that temperamental stove. The lamp by the front door sure to be on in the dark of night. One testimony after another of people who came to the Spence’s empty-handed, yet left with something to hold onto.
It was indisputable: pure, genuine hospitality lived in that house, but it wasn’t the four walls that gave hospitality a place to rest its head. It was the family who loved that little blue house with the red door into a home for all. So I knew they had to go to Idaho, making houses into homes and strangers into family – which is exactly what they’ve done through MVP Vacation Homes. Through all that has changed, who they are and what they do has remained the same; then and now, they are quality people who do quality work.
Come on in and see for yourself. There’s always a seat for you at their table.
