December 18, 2024 • 47 mins
Summary/Intro
The podcast episode explores the appeal of Lewes, Delaware, as a prime retirement destination for the LGBTQ community, highlighting its welcoming environment, affordable cost of living, and proximity to beautiful beaches. Host Mark Goldstein interviews Terry Manzberger, who shares insights into life in Lewes, emphasizing its friendly atmosphere and rich cultural heritage. Terry discusses the town's climate, healthcare facilities, and the impact of climate change, noting that while flooding and rising sea levels are concerns, local initiatives are addressing these issues. The episode also delves into the vibrant social scene in Lewes and nearby Rehoboth Beach, where numerous events and organizations cater to the LGBTQ community. Additionally, the podcast touches on the benefits of Delaware's tax structure, which makes it an attractive location for retirees.
Show Notes
Mark Goldstein engages in an insightful conversation with Terry Manzberger, who shares why he and his partner chose to retire in Lewes, Delaware. The episode offers a comprehensive look at Lewes as an ideal spot for LGBTQ retirees, emphasizing its welcoming environment, affordability, and quality of life. Terry describes the town's appeal, from its scenic beauty and historical charm to its vibrant community life.
Terry discusses the practical aspects of living in Lewes, detailing the local climate and its effects on daily life. He addresses climate change concerns, particularly coastal flooding, and the initiatives to combat these issues. The discussion of the cost of living is thorough, with Terry comparing it to other areas and highlighting the lack of sales tax and reasonable property taxes as key advantages. He also discusses the housing market, explaining the options available for buying and renting in the area.
The episode delves into community life in Lewes, focusing on the strong LGBTQ presence and the numerous social and cultural opportunities available. Terry talks about his involvement in local historical activities, clubs, and organizations that make Lewes a lively and inclusive place. The conversation wraps up with a look at healthcare services in the area, noting the improvements and availability of specialists. Overall, the episode paints a vivid picture of Lewes as an attractive retirement location for the LGBTQ community, combining affordability, community spirit, and quality of life.
Takeaways:
- Lewes, Delaware, is a small, quaint town known for its LGBTQ-friendly environment and affordable living.
- Terry and Charlie moved to Lewes after vacationing there for 20 years, attracted by the beaches and low cost of living.
- The climate in Lewes is typical mid-Atlantic, with mild winters, hot summers, and a threat of hurricanes.
- Due to its flat geography and wetlands, climate change impacts Lewes with stronger storms and flooding.
- The cost of living in Lewes is lower than in many neighboring states, with no sales tax and low property taxes.
- Lewes offers a vibrant LGBTQ community with many social groups, events, and a welcoming atmosphere.
- Local hospitals like Beebe have improved Healthcare access in Lewes, but specialist wait times can still be extended.
- Crime in Lewes is low, mainly consisting of petty theft, making it a generally safe area for retirees.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to the where do Gaysretire? Podcast, where we help you
in the LGBTQ community find asafe and affordable retirement place.
Join Mark Goldstein as heinterviews others who live in gay
friendly places around theglobe. Learn about the climate, cost
of living, healthcare, crimeand safety, and more. Now here's
(00:23):
your host, Mark Goldstein.
Have you ever wondered whatit's like to retire in Lewis, Delaware?
We'll find out, so stay to theend of the show. We have our special
guest today, Terry Manzberger,tell you a little bit about Terry.
(00:45):
Terry and his partner Charlieretired to Lewis, Delaware from northern
Virginia in 2020 aftervacationing in the area each September
for over 20 years. Terry spenta 33 year career with at and t as
an associate director andsupervisor in the business finance
department, and partnerCharlie was an HR director in the
(01:07):
federal government. When notenjoying the lower, slower Delaware
lifestyle, restaurants andbeaches with Charlie, Terry volunteers
about 25 hours a week withhistoric Lewis in a colonial period
tour guide, museum, docenttavern, barkeep cutter, rower, and
(01:29):
historic interpretation actor.Usually in full 18th century clothing,
he often sews by hand. So Ihave to. Do you have any pictures
of those? Of that? I'd like tosee those. I'd like to see those.
We'll put them up oninstagram. Terry and Charlie were
attracted to the LewisRehoboth beach area for its easy
(01:52):
access to atlantic beaches,outdoor spaces, LGBTQ welcoming environment,
small, quaint towns, and thelow cost of living. Affordable housing
near the beaches coupled withlow taxes and availability of healthcare
options makes it a primeretirement spot, especially for gay
retirees. Okay, let's get intothe nitty gritty. I'm really excited
(02:18):
and really interested in whatLewis is all about. So, Terry, welcome.
And can you describe theclimate and geography of Lewis, Delaware?
What can retirees expect interms of weather year round?
Sure. Just to put it inperspective, Lewis is at the entrance
(02:40):
to the Delaware Bay, which isjust south of the Delaware river.
From Philadelphia, we're onthe east coast, very close to a nearby
town, Rehoboth beach, and theother beach towns that run up and
down the Delaware coast toVirginia and to New Jersey. We're
right across the bay from CapeMay, New Jersey, and the Jersey beaches,
so we're definitely a beachresort type area. Here in Delaware,
(03:06):
the weather is pretty much midatlantic east coast weather. We do
get the change of seasonshere. We get some snow, but because
we're close to the ocean, it'sgenerally in rain. We get more rain
than snow. We do get a lot ofwinds from the nor'easter storms
that go up the coast. We dohave a threat of hurricanes from
time to time, but normallythey miss this particular. We're
(03:28):
kind of tucked into the midatlantic area, so we don't get direct
hits usually like they do inFlorida. But the weather is actually
pretty, pretty nice. Itdoesn't get extremely cold. It doesn't
get extremely hot in thesummer. We do get humidity right
now this time of year,September, October and in the late
spring are the best times tobe here. The weather's pretty fixed,
(03:50):
very pleasant, and we had asmany tourists in the off season.
So what do you have now? Likein the seventies?
Yeah, seventies, maybe up toabout 80. A low humidity. The evenings
are cool. They drop down inthe upper fifties. Just really nice
outside fall weather.
And this is, we're recordingthis on September 29, so that's pretty
(04:12):
cool. It certainly beatsPhoenix's 117 degree weather right
now. So let's talk a littlebit about climate change. How has
climate change impacted lifein Lewis, particularly with issues
like flooding or rising sealevels? Are these concerns for retirees
moving into the area?
(04:33):
Well, yes, you got toremember, Delaware is fairly flat
and we don't have very manymountainous areas at all. There's
a lot of wetlands along thecoast. So with the climate change,
we are seeing stronger stormsthat come up the coast. The nor'easter,
which is basically a winterhurricane. We'll get some pretty
(04:55):
severe thunderstorms throughthe summer. There's always a threat
of tornado activity. It hasn'tbeen a direct hit in Lewis in many
years, but it is somethingthey're seeing more of as the climate.
You know, climate changeaffects the weather. We are seeing
flooding, too, with, when youget these heavy storms. And because
we get it actually floods morefrom the wind pushing from in, from
(05:17):
the ocean, it pushes thewater, it makes the tides higher.
So you may not even get a lotof rain, but you will get an effect
from the wind and the tides.So we'll get a lot of coastal tide
flooding, they call it here,where it'll come into up the little
creeks and it'll flood in thelow areas. So obviously people don't
(05:38):
build in those areas or theytry not to, but some of the older
communities that are too closeto that are being more affected.
It'll flood some of thehighways. We've had instance, there's
a major road that connectsfrom Lewis down through Rehoboth
all the way to Virginia, andit hugs the ocean of the coast. And
(05:59):
we've had areas where thedunes have been broken through by
storms, and the, the road hasbeen flooded, so they're working
on trying to fix that, butit's a never ending battle with the
eroding beaches. The stormscome and take the beach away, then
we pump more sand in, spend alot of money to dredge, and then
the next season we get another storm.
So, yeah, never ending isright. And how close are you to the
(06:23):
beach or to the ocean?
Lewis is right at the mouth ofthe Delaware bay and the ocean. It's
where the two meet. So we're.The town itself is about a mile,
if that, from the actualbeaches. Lewis is about 6 miles from
Rehoboth beach, which isdirectly on the ocean. And that's
(06:44):
a larger, much larger beachtown type environment over there.
But they're kind of a sistercity to us. So we, we share a lot
of the same facilities andeverything. Right. So that, yeah,
that's much closer, but, yeah.And the thing is, this part of Delaware,
we have the ocean front, youknow, ocean beaches. We also have
(07:04):
two large bays that are rightbehind the towns. So there's Rehoboth
Bay, and then there's a canalthat connects them from Lewis to
Rehoboth Bay and from theDelaware Bay to Rehoboth Bay. So
there's plenty of waterfront,if you will, areas, properties, and
opportunity for boating andkayaking and that sort of thing.
(07:27):
Are there any localinitiatives or infrastructure projects
addressing the effects ofclimate change in Lewis?
Yeah, the cities and thecounty governments are aware of it.
They're definitely, they'vegot commission, so they've got committees
working on that, working withthe federal government to try to
figure a way to lessen theimpacts of that. There's initiatives
(07:49):
for offshore windmills farmsas we try to work on the electrical
grid here. The biggestchallenge really kind of linked to
climate change as well, is thesomewhat over development of the
area that's happening, wherethey loosened the rules on development
over the years. And so they'removing into wetland areas and taking
(08:09):
up a lot of the free spacethat we need for the rain and the
runoffs and so forth. Sothat's having an impact already.
And there's beginning. Thetide's turning a bit on that here
politically, and it's startingto push back on some of that.
That. Okay, so the secret isout about Lewis. Everybody loves
to. They heard about Lewis andthey're wanting to move there.
(08:32):
Absolutely.
So let's talk about the costof living. What is the cost of living
like? And give us an ideaabout the what the median home value
for a single family home is.And if you have any rentals, what
a typical one to two bedroomrental might cost.
Right. So the county thatLewis is in is Sussex county and
(08:55):
a large part of the county andthe state is still very rural, a
lot of farmland, a lot of cornand wheat type places. Farms, however,
along the coast is where yousee most of the housing and the development.
And there, here in Lewis andthe areas right around it, you're
(09:15):
looking at for a three bedroomsingle family home, average around
$430,000. You can get cheaperthan that if you go a little farther
away from the coast and moreinland. But for our community, that
has its own challenges becauseit is a very rural area. And what's
happening is the farms arebeing sold to developers who then
(09:37):
will go in and put a couplehundred houses on an old farm. And
they're basically, you can geta new build, you can get a new house
here, a three bedroom startingin somewhere, some places in the
mid to upper 300s.
Wow.
But you're, you know, you'reseveral miles from the beach. Plus
it adds the traffic, makes ita little difficult in the summer.
(09:58):
But yeah, if you're lookingfor that kind of a community where
you have, you know, largenumber of homes and a kind of a no.
Kind of no trees farmland.
Right. Like a master plan thing.
Yeah. Now if you want a homethat's close to the beach and in
the towns of Lake Lewis,you're looking upwards to a million
and a half to get really closeto the ocean. And that's for pretty
(10:22):
much, you know, regular sizedhouse or even a small cottage in
some places, but very high. Toget those, you can get a condominium.
You can rent. You can rent ahouse here annually for probably
two, maybe $2,500 to 3000 amonth. And you can get a condo, an
apartment about like a twobedroom apartment, a condo or something
(10:44):
for maybe up to upwards to $2,000.
So prices have gone up prettymuch, yeah, when the secret gets
out.
So it was really hot beforethe interest rates went up. They're
starting to now. I wasstarting, you know, I expect we'll
start to see that to drop andthey'll pick up again. It was very
there for a while, like rightafter the pandemic. It was difficult
(11:07):
to even find a house herebecause the demand was so high and
the volume supply was very,you know, very low number of houses
on the market. That's whyPenn. And you kind of have to make
that decision. Do you want toget an established house, which you
can get cheaper than thataverage rate, I believe.
Right.
Or do you want a new build? Alot of people want a brand new house.
(11:28):
That's kind of the big choicehere. There's plenty of new builds
still going in that you couldget. Find one pretty easily, probably,
but all depends what you'relooking for.
Gotcha. Okay. How do everydayexpenses like grocery and utilities
compare to other areas ofDelaware or to the national average?
(11:51):
Well, we're slightly higher,about 2% than some of the other places
or nationally, or 2% higherthan national and a little bit higher
than some of the neighboringstates. We don't have sales tax here,
so to me that's acounterweight. So I'm coming from
northern Virginia, outside ofWashington, DC. To me, this feels
like a much cheaper area tolive. I find personally, the expenses
(12:15):
have been a lot less andthere's plenty of. And then we have
a lot of outlet stores herebecause it is a resort area. So you
can, for clothing especially,and all of the name brand type things.
They have outlet stores here,so you can get a lot of deals on
clothing. At least here.Groceries are like everywhere else.
You know, they've gone up, butstill there's plenty of choices here.
(12:38):
Groceries. Groceries.
I was going to ask you that.
Yeah, we have all severalmajor of the chains and Costco there.
Competition.
Pardon me, do you have a Costco?
We don't have a Costco. Wehave a BJ's nearby. The Costco is.
We do have one upstate nearWilmington, which is about maybe
an hour from here, an hour anda half from here from Lewis. So that's
(13:02):
a day trip if you want to goto Costco.
Okay, that's funny. Okay.
There is talk of building onehere just outside of Lewis, but there
is an area that's looking todevelop for that kind of thing. So
we have our fingers crossed wemight get one in a couple of years.
But.
Do you have a trader Joe's?
No. What? We know no traderJoe's in this area.
(13:26):
Okay, let's talk about taxes.So taxes are a big concern for retirees.
Can you explain? I knowDelaware is. They don't have a state
tax, right?
Well, it's one of. It is oneof the pros of coming to Delaware
and why we have so manyretirees coming. Like I said, we
have no sales tax. Theproperty taxes and school taxes are
(13:48):
very low. Property taxes is 0.53%.
Wow.
So like a $200,000 home,you're going to pay about $1,600
a year.
Wow. That's incredible.
Yeah. Compared to New Jerseyor Pennsylvania, that's a big.
New Jersey is like sky high. Right.
And then on income taxes, theincome tax is two to 5%. It's graduated
(14:13):
or kind of a sliding scale. Soif you're under 60,000, you're going
to pay somewhere between twoand 5%. If you're over $60,000 a
year in income, the maximumincome tax would be about 6.6%.
Okay.
So it's not too bad. And thenthey also, they don't tax your Social
(14:33):
Security benefits here. Andyou can exclude 12,500 of your pension
or four hundred one k, thefirst twelve thousand five hundred
is excluded.
That helps.
So then they tax it. Thatother income tax rate after that.
That definitely helps foranybody who's 60 and above.
Oh, wow. Okay. It's not.
(14:54):
And then at 65, I believethey, they drop, they don't even
pay property tax.
Really.
At 65 over, there's a thing,an income level, but they have like
a tax. Yeah.
I mean, a homestead exemption.
Not sure.
Okay. All right. Well, that'spretty good. That's really good.
(15:18):
I mean, if over 65 and you'renot paying property tax or a low
property tax, that's great for me.
How about you?
How about pensions? Are theythe same as 401 ks and.
Yeah, that's the 12,500exemption. And then you get taxed
if they. Whatever your incomerate would be.
Awesome.
Income tax rate.
(15:40):
All right. Now, my favorite iswalkability. I don't know if Lewis
is. Tell me, does Lewis havelike a downtown? Is there a place
that you could walk todifferent bars, restaurants, coffee
shops or stores?
Yes. Lewis is very small town,and it's an old town. It's almost
(16:01):
400 years old, and it'sbasically pretty much at the same
place it's been all that time.It's like I said before, it's close
to the water, but the mainpart of the town where the business
district is just a coupleblocks long, and it's on primarily
two or three streets. So it'sa very concentrated area, easily
walkable. It's one of thebeautiful parts about Lewis that
(16:23):
everyone likes is it's a veryquaint, quiet little town that you
can walk. It looks beautiful.Homes, a mixture of victorian homes
and old historic homes. Andwe're right on the canal. So we have
some boats coming in and out.So it's a very pretty little town
to walk in. And we have anumber of shops and restaurants are
really good. We're gettingmore and more upscale restaurants
(16:44):
now in Lewis. So you haveplenty of that to walk to, parks.
And of course, the historicaldistrict that I'm familiar with is
very. Is right there downtown.And we have a lot of museums and
options there.
Cool. Very cool. Now, you needa car, right?
Pretty much. If you're goingto be going outside of the town.
(17:05):
I mean, unless you lived inthe town, you would still need to
get somewhere to get to thegrocery store.
So you need a car to.
Yeah.
Okay.
There is bus service. Localbus service. And then there's bus
service that goes take you upthrough Delaware, up towards Philadelphia.
But it's, you know, it's localbus service. It's not. If you're
coming from a city, it's notgoing to be anywhere on the level
(17:26):
that you're the right.
You used to. Very nice. Asmall, charming town. I love it.
Okay, so you need a car. Howclose is the mate is the nearest
airport? Is that in Wilmington?
Well, they have one that it'snot. If you're looking for an international,
(17:46):
like, big airport to makeyour. If you're going anywhere far,
Philly, Philadelphia would bethe closest one. It's about 78 miles.
So it's about two hour drivefrom here. From Lewis to Philadelphia.
You can get taxi or limoservice from Lewis up there. You
can also get a bus. It'll takeyou a lot longer on the bus.
Yeah.
Like multiple hours to getthere. But you're also not that far
(18:12):
from BWI, which is inBaltimore, from the Washington airports,
Washington, DC. So they're alittle further. About two and a half
hours away. So it'sdefinitely, you know, you got options
there. You can go toWilmington and take the train. And
the train will get you to NewYork or Philadelphia as well. You
can get hook up with thetrain. So I know people, friends
(18:35):
of mine that go to New YorkCity a lot. They'll go. They'll drive
to Wilmington, park at thetrain station, and take the train.
Wilmington doesn't have an airport.
They do, but it's not local,not a major airport. They have service
to Florida from there now.
Okay. Alrighty. And let's talkabout the LGBTQ community. I know
(19:01):
that Lewis and Rehoboth arevery LGBTQ friendly. I know at least
in Rehoboth, there is a lot ofbusinesses that are LGBTQ friendly.
Tell us a little bit aboutLewis and how that coincides, or
(19:22):
is it as friendly and do youhave, like, gay restaurants or gay
friendly bars?
Well, yeah, there isdefinitely a difference in vibe between
Lewis and Rehoboth Lewis ismuch more of a regular small town
that has a beach, we like tosay, versus a beach town. However,
(19:44):
we are seeing more and moreLGBTQ moving into the area in and
around Lewis. I live in thezip code of Lewis, and my community
is about 30% of our folks. Itis kind of a popular place for our
community to retire. We dohave a lot of retirees here, a lot
of lesbian couples and malecouples. So, as a result, we're seeing
(20:07):
that spread across the region,really. So Lewis is very welcoming
to the community. There aren'tthat. There aren't that many gay
owned places in Lewis proper,but there are in Rehoboth beach nearby.
But there. I mean, it's neverbeen an issue here. I mean, it's
a very inclusive, accepting. Yeah.
(20:29):
Yeah. And I know, I guess asRehoboth also gets so crowded, people
don't want to be in thecrowds, and then Lewis is really
not too far. How far is Lewisfrom Rehoboth?
6 miles.
Oh, that's nothing.
No. And if you take a bike,it's even faster. There's a bike
(20:49):
trail links the two townsalong the ocean, so there's a lot
of biking activity here, but.Yeah. And Rehoboth. And actually,
that, you know, in this partof the county, there's quite a few
organizations that have poppedup. You know, we have Camp Rehoboth,
which is like the gaycommunity center. They have a. A
(21:10):
whole host of programs andgroups and different activities.
For retirees especially. Wehave a good library system here that's
often used by everyone. Wehave various groups that all that
have formed up. Like, I belongto one that's for men over 55. Gay
men over 55. And it's calledthe coastal beach buddies. And we
(21:32):
go walk the boardwalk and have brunch.
That's nice.
Things like that. There's alot of social groups here for our
community, and pretty much anydifferent stripe you would want to
find, you'll find that there'splenty to do that way. And there's
a big support network for thecommunity. There's an MCC church
here in the area, in Lewis,for instance. So I think we're pretty.
(21:56):
Well, you won't have a problemfinding other folks.
Okay. I was going to say youdon't have. You know, it's pretty
easy to meet other LGBTQpeople in town.
Yeah. And it's a very friendlyenvironment, and, you know, people,
they're retired or they'rehere in the summer. That number swells
as we get visitors coming fromWashington and Philadelphia and New
(22:18):
York. We get a big influx of.So there's plenty of gay bars and
restaurants and clubs andactivities going on in Rehoboth,
especially in the summertime.So there's. And we have. Yeah, there's
all that.
Does Lewis have a pride orthey go to. Or they share it with,
like, Rehoboth?
They share it with Rehoboth?Pretty much. Rehoboth is the lead
(22:39):
for all of that sort of thing.I know. Okay, Lewis, if you picture,
too, the Lewis zip code wrapsaround Rehoboth. So Rehoboth is like
hugging the ocean beach, butthen anything that 2 miles out of
the town is going to beconsidered. Lewis.
Lewis.
So we're all kind of one.We're all. We're really together.
One family here.
Yeah. Yep. Very cool. Verycool. All right, so there is an LGBTQ
(23:04):
community. You can find gayfriendly bars and restaurants between
Lewis and Rehoboth, andthere's organizations and events
in Rehoboth as well for thecommunity. Do they have, like, a
LGBTQ center and is it in Rehoboth?
Yes, that's Camp Rehoboth.
(23:25):
Okay. Gotcha. All right, let'stalk about arts, culture, and dining.
Dining. One of my favoritesubjects. Okay. Do you have any art
scene or arts and culture theater?
We do have art scene here.Now, again, if you're coming from
(23:46):
an urban area or a largercity, it's not going to be on the.
Obviously, on the same level.We do have a very vibrant local theater
here called Clearspace, andthey're actually looking to expand
and build a new facility soon.And they provide theater throughout
the year, but especially inthe summer. They'll get summer stock
(24:07):
actors in from New York, andthey'll do several shows in the summertime.
And they also. They're aneducational theater, so they have
classes that people can take,and if you want to get involved that
way, or for younger people,like, they have a youth program in
the theater, so that's kind ofexciting. We also have a lot of local
artists, and so we have ourart shows. We have an artist guild
(24:31):
in Rehoboth that they havestudios and whatnot for the artists.
So we do have that. Museums wedo have. Again, we have. There's
a lot of history here. BeingDelaware is pretty old, so it's a
lot of that. If you'reinterested in that kind of colonial
or, you know, early 19thcentury type history of. We have
lots of that. A lot ofmaritime things, too. We have maritime
(24:52):
museums. If you're interestedin that, tell us.
A little bit about yourcolonial things that you do.
Yes, sir. Yeah. Historic Lewisis a society, it's a historical society
of Lewis and we have abouttwelve buildings that we own and
operate and we have several ofthem are open as museums. So I took
(25:15):
a tour, I took a walking toura couple years ago when we moved
here full time. I enjoyed thetour and I thought, well, I always
liked history so that lookslike something fun. And they get
to wear funny clothes so, youknow, who doesn't like to dress up,
so.
That's right.
So I volunteered. I did somework in their archives. They were
really fantastic archives inour history museum, which you could
(25:38):
spend days in there just goingdown rabbit holes. But eventually
they got me to put on theclothes and work as a docent. So
I'm a tour guide at some ofthe museums. And then we have an
old tavern that we bring tolife every weekend. So we actually
mix up old colonial drinks andI serve those as a barkeep and we'll
get.
That is so cool.
A lot of fun with that. And Ido right now we're in October, heading
(26:02):
into October, so we'll bedoing extra nighttime walking tours.
They're called the LegendsTour. So we give you history and
we sprinkle in a little ghoststories and we take you into some
of the haunted buildings.
I love that.
Yeah. So that's a lot of fun.It gives me something to do. Besides,
you can only eat so muchshrimp and sit on the beach so long.
Right.
And it sounds so much fun. Itreally. Yeah.
(26:23):
I get to meet people that way.I do. Like I miss a little bit. I
mean, it is a small townenvironment here. You're here a couple
years, you'll get to know alot of people. It's more like a.
What is it, six separate. Sixdegrees of separation here it's more
like two. So every, that is,you know, that could be a pro and
a con.
That's true. Everybody couldget into everybody's business.
(26:45):
Yeah, everybody knowseverybody. So somebody that knows
somebody.
Right.
So there's that. But it isnice to meet other people that come
in from time to time.
That's so great. I love that.All right, so how about dining options?
Talk about restaurants.
Well, this being a vacationdestination, we have a lot of good
(27:06):
restaurants and not just yourbeachy type restaurant. I mean, we
have plenty of those if youlike crabs and things like that.
But we also have high endrestaurants. And given that we have
so many people coming fromWashington, DC and Philadelphia.
We do have some pretty upscalerestaurants that are very nice, very
fine dining. It's great forour community as well. So Lewis has
(27:30):
added a few. We have this onecalled the harbor restaurant on the
canal, which is really quitebeautiful, has the best view of the
water in town. They're verygood. And we have. We have a great
indian restaurant, which isnice to have some diversity in the
area. So that's a verywonderful restaurant. We go to a
lot. We have some good. We'regetting some better asian style food
(27:53):
here now. So that's good. Wehave a couple good thai places, things
like that. Awesome. It's awide range, so you can go from anywhere,
from a good walkaway pizzashop, slice of pizza, up to, you
know, a two hour gourmetdinner. So it covers all the bases,
really, for a small town. It'squite impressive.
And that's within the Lewisarea, right?
(28:15):
Yes, they're all within thatlittle business district I was mentioning
a couple blocks from each other.
So do you know approximatelyhow many restaurants do you think
you have in Lewis? I knowLewis is a small town.
Oh, at least a dozen, 15.
Well, that's pretty good.Yeah, that's a nice size. That's.
(28:38):
Sure it is. And then Rehobothhas a ton, I.
Would think a lot more.
Yes, very nice.
You won't go hungry, andyou'll have plenty of variety. You
can you get into your circuitof where you go and your favorites,
but.
Very good. I'm getting hungryagain, as usual. How about healthcare?
(28:59):
So healthcare is reallyimportant. How far is the nearest
hospital? Tell us. Or howclose is the nearest hospital? And
is it accessible to Lewis? Arethere long waits for doctors? What
is the situation there?
Well, healthcare has actuallyreally improved here in the last
(29:22):
several years with an influxof retirees. They definitely have
a demand. So there is ahospital. It's been in Lewis for
over 100 years, and it's thelargest hospital in the southern
Delaware area. It's calledBeebe Hospital, and that's right
downtown Lewis. They keepexpanding. They've been building
(29:43):
like crazy. So they. They'veadded several. They've added a new
surgical hospital just outsideof town, actually just a block or
about a half a mile from myhouse. And they've opened up a lot
of other area walk in centersand places where, like, we can get
your blood work done and youcan do smaller procedures. They can
(30:03):
do more simple procedures. Soit's getting much more accessible
than it was maybe 20 yearsago. There's actually three hospitals
now, three medical businessesworking in the county, BB being the
largest. But there's anotherone that's moving its way into the
area. So it's to meet thedemand. I mean, it is a high demand,
(30:26):
especially with this. Andwe're getting more and more specialist
care here. So you're prettymuch find any specialist you would
need. Once you get into one ofthe systems and get your general
practice doctor, then it'smuch easier to get into all the other
places, like they'll get youreferrals everywhere. Recent survey
I saw that came out, we wereranked number two in the country
(30:47):
in hospital quality, numbersix in health care quality, and 9th,
best state for healthcare. Andwe have the 10th. We're ranked 10th
in the country for access. Sothings are definitely getting better
here. Now, that said, I mean,sometimes to get. Maybe the doctor
you want could be a bit of achallenge, or there have been, depending
(31:10):
on what needs. You have someof the specialists, it is a little
long, there's a bit of a waitto get into them, unless obviously,
if it's a critical situation,you'll get bumped up, but you may
wait long, especially forelective type surgeries. You might
be on a wait for a littlewhile, but that's getting better
and better. They also have, Ithink, what they call boutique healthcare,
(31:32):
where you can pay, you paylike an extra annual fee in order
to get access to quicker.Yeah. So that's becoming a thing
here now, too.
Yeah, they boutique or concierge?
Exact. Concierge. That's the word.
Concierge, yeah.
So there's definitely peoplein the area that can afford that
and choose to go that route,but the average person can get good
(31:55):
care here.
It's a fancy way to say, oh,pay me $700 and I'll get you in faster.
Yeah. I will say, though,another thing medically, though,
it's not for people, is thisis a very heavily dog friendly area.
I mean, there's just abouteverybody has a pet, and so as a
result, with more and morepeople bringing pets, it's actually
(32:17):
harder to get into a vetappointment than it is a person.
I believe it. We also have ashort. We don't have good emergency
care for pets yet in thisarea. I think we did, and it just
got overwhelmed. And so youdo. The closest emergency hospital,
really, for a pet is in Dover,Delaware, which is about 45 minutes
(32:38):
away from Lewis. So you haveto. There's something to take into
account, especially if youhave elderly pets. I think that'll
get better in time and peoplewill start to meet, you know, they'll
move in and meet, try to meetthat demand, but just throw that
out there.
That's a little gap out there.But as far as, like if you need a
cardiologist or dermatologist,any of those specialties, there's
(33:01):
no problem really getting oneand getting an appointment. What
do you think? Two weeks for anappointment or more or less.
If you're an established, onceyou're an established patient, you
don't have any. You really,it's pretty quick. You can get one
in a couple weeks. If you'rebrand new and you're, you know, you
get into it, they might, youmight be waiting, you know, to start
(33:23):
up with a cardiologist. Youmight have to wait a month or two.
Yeah. Okay.
And also I think it depends ifyou coming in and you still have
private health insurance, youmight get a little faster onboarding
than if you were Medicare.
Just have Medicaid. Medicare.
Yeah.
Okay. That's good to know.That's good to know.
So, but also then remember,you're not far from, if you have
(33:47):
a very serious like cancersituation or something, you do have,
you know, we're not that farfrom Philly or Washington or places.
Like that has great.
Yeah.
Medical. And how far seems again.
Yeah.
How far is it? 2 hours.
Yeah, 2 hours.
Okay. All right. Awesome.Crime and safety. I wouldn't think
(34:12):
there's a big crime.
Issue in Lewis, not in termsof like violent crime. We don't really
have that. We have your, youknow, you're going to have your burglaries
and break and a lot of carmostly would be car break ins for
people that are not even abreak. And they say break in, but
people tend to leave theircars open and then leave them outside.
(34:34):
And that's not the best,especially in the summertime season
when you got a lot of peoplecoming in from, you know, out of
town.
Right.
So it's a big influx ofpeople. So you're going to see an
influx in crime of smallnature, but there's not the violent
like attacks and shootings andthings like that.
Right. Like you hear in big cities.
(34:54):
No, there's, there's some drugissues here. Again, when you get
the influx of.
Folks from other places.
Yeah. But it's not, you know,nothing like you would, you know,
think about it. Oh, a drugproblem there. That would say.
Right. Or maybe stealing anAmazon package off your porch.
Yeah.
Some petty theft. More. Moreor less. Right.
(35:16):
Yeah, more that. But it's, Imean, I feel perfectly safe walking
around in Lewis, downtownLewis at night.
So if you had to walk your dogoutside your home at two in the morning,
you wouldn't feel.
Not a problem.
You wouldn't feel. You'd feelsafe. Okay. That's good to know.
So there's no real crimeconcerns that prospective retirees
(35:40):
should be aware about. Arethere some neighborhoods that are
safer than others?
Well, sure. And, you know,especially if you're LGBTQ, you're
gonna like anywhere else inthe country, you're going to look
around, you're going to beaware of the surroundings. If you're
what I call the bubble. If youstay within the bubble of the resort
(36:01):
areas, you know, right herealong the coast, you're going to
be fine, because in somecases, where your community is going
to be 30, 40% your peoplelgbt. Right. So you'll feel perfectly.
I mean, it's kind of unusualnot to see us or not to see gay couples
around here.
I like that.
Yeah. You go in a restaurant,and maybe 50% of the patrons there
(36:23):
are lgbt. And so, you know,that's it. But if you're going out,
if you're looking, maybeyou're trying to get a cheaper home
and you're moving to some ofthese smaller towns in the world.
The towns are changing. Wehave a place called Milton just up
the.
Oh, yeah, I heard of Milton.
A few miles north of Lewis andanother place called Milford, which
(36:43):
is just a little bit pastthat. Milton has a new theater there
that's been doing very welland attracting a lot of LGBTQ patrons
and also people moving therenow. And Milton's under a bit of
a housing boom. So if you likeeven a smaller town feel than Lewis
and you want that kind ofcountry, small town feel, maybe not
(37:08):
quite mayberry, but, you know.
It'S mayberry to me.
All right. But it. Some peoplelike the small. You know, that smallness.
Sure.
That's a really nice place togo, and it's up and coming, and there's
a lot of expense, a lot ofexciting plans for that town, and
they're getting more and moregay folks up there, as you know,
around a lot of these towns,so. But, you know, there's other
areas like you go down to.Over towards the southern southwestern
(37:32):
part of Delaware, you'regetting into, like, Salisbury. Oh,
that's not a good example. Butsome of these little western towns
that are still kind of notright there with us. You know, you're.
You got to be careful whereyou end up.
It's. Yeah, that's pretty mucheverywhere you go outside of the
town or city and in the ruralareas, and you got to be aware of
(37:57):
where you're going.
I mentioned Salisbury there. Imean, Salisbury is in Maryland. Yeah.
It's about an hour and a half.Yeah, a little over an hour from
Lewis down. It's just on theborder, just over the border from
Delaware, because Delaware,Virginia, and Maryland all meet together
here in what we call Delmarva,which is the big peninsula. It has
all three states, butSalisbury has a university there,
(38:20):
so that's obviously auniversity town. So if you're looking
for more that kind of. Youwant to be closer to, like, a university
environment, you'd want to gomaybe down into Salisbury, right
over the border, or rightacross the border into Delaware.
It'll be pretty good. Andyou'll find, I'm sure, that they
have a lot going on down there.
Yeah.
As well.
I never heard of Salisbury,Maryland, until I met somebody and
(38:44):
we did a podcast, believe itor not, on Salisbury. I was pretty
surprised, actually. Yeah.
It's close to the Marylandbeaches. Ocean City, Maryland, which
is a very large beach town. Sothat there, again, if you like that
kind of a beach townexperience, you want to, you know,
then the further south you go,the more you're going to get that
(39:06):
here in Lewis and Merhobethand along the Delaware coast, they're
much quieter, smaller towns.We don't have the big high rise hotels.
They're small. They're Airbnb.You know, like Airbnbs. They're bed
and breakfast, a lot of bedand breakfast places that are really
charming. You can rent alittle beach cottage in these. Both
of the Louis and Rehoboth, youcan rent those for the summer or,
(39:28):
you know, for a week. Sothat's a really nice. Even if you
don't move here, that's awonderful place to visit on occasion.
It's quaint. As opposed tothat resort type, ocean city type
place. Yeah, I kind of, youknow, even though I'm a city boy,
I kind of. I think I prefer aLewis Rehoboth type place. It's just
(39:53):
quiet and peaceful and soundslike a really great place to retire.
We like it.
Yeah. All right. So how aboutyour final thoughts? What words of
wisdom can you tell ouraudience if they're considering moving
to Lewis?
(40:14):
Well, I think what I wasstarting to go there was with the
small town environment, ifyou're coming from a more urban area,
you know, it is definitely, wecall it the lower, slower. Delaware
is what they call this area.And they mean that things, things
are just on a different level.Things don't go very fast here. So
if you're especially, like, ifyou're getting better. Huh? How about
(40:37):
in a restaurant? Oh, well,depending. Or if they've gone fishing.
But no, the high, the goodrestaurants are just fine. But I'm
thinking more in terms of,like, if you're getting contract
work done here, which is,that's a little, that's getting a
little challenging with somany homes here now to make, you
know, if you have a skill orif they have a, people have those
(40:58):
kinds of skills, this is theplace to come. But, you know, it
just, it takes a while to getthem and they take their time sometimes
in doing repairs and thingslike that. But, but I would say if
you a little slower lifestyle,which is still sophisticated enough
that, you know, we have ourtheater, we have our good restaurants
and all of that, you know,just bear in mind that if you're
(41:19):
moving to an area like this isa summer vacation destination. So
in the summer, it's going toget very busy. We're going to get
a huge influx of people.Traffic's going to be very awful
for a couple months. You won'tbe able to get into your favorite
restaurants as easily. Youknow, they start charging for parking
downtown Lewis and Merhowthduring the summer months. So you
(41:39):
just take that into accountand you kind of work, if you're retired,
you can easily work your lifearound that. The other thing is that
I really love about here isthat we have so much of outdoor activities
that are available. If youlike that sort of thing. You like
to be able to hike, you liketo be able to ride a bike. We have
tons of bike trails allaround, and it's pretty level, so
(42:01):
it's pretty easy even forretirees. The bike trails are really
well maintained, sometimesbetter than the roads. And Delaware
is full of really nice stateparks and local parks that are really
maintained well and havetrails that you can really explore.
If you like to be on thewater. We have a lot of boat options
here. You can take the ferryover to Cape May, New Jersey, which
(42:26):
is always a fun trip. And thenif you take your car on the ferry,
then you can go on up toAtlantic City or up the coast of
Jersey. So it's a quick andfun way to get to New Jersey from
here. So lots of things like that.
So what do you think attractsthe gay? I'm always fascinated of
(42:46):
how the gay community getsattracted to certain places. And
Lewis being one, you said,like, you know, you walk into a restaurant,
and half the people in therestaurant are lgbtQ.
I think it's, I think itstarted because this was a beach
area, and the beaches herealways have been a pretty, pretty
(43:07):
nice, it used to be a veryquiet, sleepy town. Rehov. And so
the fact that it was, and thefact that it's so close to Washington,
DC and Baltimore andPhiladelphia, it pulls people from
those cities. People thatdidn't want to go to the Jersey Shore
maybe didn't feel ascomfortable going to some of the
places in the Jersey shorehere. They just kind of gravitated
(43:28):
to the Delaware beaches. AndOcean City, Maryland, has always
been a popular beach spot.And, I mean, I can remember when
I was in high school, that'swhere we went after graduation, went
to Ocean City, Maryland, andthen these other towns kind of, you
kind of passed through them toget there. And so I think what happened
is just some people startedcoming to Verhobot. They were well,
and they started openbusinesses. They were received well
(43:50):
by the local government. Now,it took a while for the people, some
of the locals to embrace that,but over time, we just sort of moved
in. And that's really whatCamp Rehoboth was formed as an organization
to work with the town ofRehoboth to make and Lewis to make
this a safe community foreverybody and to work. And so there
(44:11):
was a real effort on thatfront. And then as people just word
spread. And back 2030 yearsago, you could get a really, you
could buy a cheap house inthese little towns.
Oh, yeah.
And people from the citiescame here and bought houses, and
then it became, it just sortof became word of mouth, I guess.
It's, I was just going to say.
Once you get established, itspreads. And, I mean, you know, we
(44:35):
have whole areas that arevery, now it's getting more and more,
you know, everywhere else, youknow, you're not seeing the gay bars
as much anymore. So we're kindof, we're kind of in all of the places
now, too. So it's the samehere. It used to be you kind of,
when you came to these places,you would go to the gay restaurant
or you go to the gay bar.Well, now everybody goes everywhere.
(44:56):
And everybody's, we gotstraight coming to all the gay places.
They come to the, and there'sa lot of drag shows here, so, and
that kind of entertainment.And you see a lot of straight couples
coming to that. So it's anice, it's always felt like a, where
everybody kind of live and letlive kind of feel. At least that's
how I feel about it in bothLouis and the surrounding area here.
(45:17):
So I think that's attractiveto retirees, especially because it
felt that's when my partnerand I were looking for a place. We
just. It was like a no brainerbecause we always felt safe here
and welcome, and you didn'tfeel like you had to hide yourself.
So that's great. Spread the gay.
Yeah.
That'S wonderful. I thinkLewis and Delaware itself is very
(45:41):
attractive to people becauseof the tax situation. No, no tax.
Would you agree with that?
Yes.
Okay.
That's the number one thingyou will hear from people that retire
here. It's because of the lowtaxes, especially the property tax.
We hear nightmares of peoplecoming here from New Jersey and Pennsylvania
(46:02):
and other higher tax places.
I've been looking all over thecountry, and then I get cost of living,
and, you know, everythinglooks good, and maybe with cost of
living a little bit high, andthen I look at the property tax,
and I'm, like, blown out ofthe water. I'm like, holy moly, this
(46:23):
is crazy. You know? So, yeah,taxes is you have to look at everything
where you're retiring, safetynow, climate change, LGBTQ community,
whether it's, you know, safeor not, everything we have to. There's
like, it limits the bucketlist, put it that way. So.
(46:46):
Absolutely.
All right. Well, Terry, thankyou so much for coming to the podcast,
and we enjoyed and goteducated. I'd like to see some pictures
of you dressed up in yourhistorical garb, so that will be
fun.
Yeah.
And thank you for everything,and I appreciate it very much.
(47:08):
Well, if you get to Lewis,stop by the tavern, and I'll set
you up with the groganite.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Allright, well, thank you.
Thank you.
Bye bye.
Thank you for listening to thewhere do gays retire? Podcast. If
you enjoyed today's episode,please subscribe to our podcast and
(47:28):
consider making a donation byclicking the coffee cup on any page
at www.wheredogaysretire.com.each cup of coffee that you buy costs
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your continued support.
Welcome to the where do Gaysretire? Podcast, where we help you
in the LGBTQ community find asafe and affordable retirement place.
Join Mark Goldstein as heinterviews others who live in gay
friendly places around theglobe. Learn about the climate, cost
of living, healthcare, crimeand safety, and more. Now here's
(00:23):
your host, Mark Goldstein.
Have you ever wondered whatit's like to retire in Lewis, Delaware?
We'll find out, so stay to theend of the show. We have our special
guest today, Terry Manzberger,tell you a little bit about Terry.
(00:45):
Terry and his partner Charlieretired to Lewis, Delaware from northern
Virginia in 2020 aftervacationing in the area each September
for over 20 years. Terry spenta 33 year career with at and t as
an associate director andsupervisor in the business finance
department, and partnerCharlie was an HR director in the
(01:07):
federal government. When notenjoying the lower, slower Delaware
lifestyle, restaurants andbeaches with Charlie, Terry volunteers
about 25 hours a week withhistoric Lewis in a colonial period
tour guide, museum, docenttavern, barkeep cutter, rower, and
(01:29):
historic interpretation actor.Usually in full 18th century clothing,
he often sews by hand. So Ihave to. Do you have any pictures
of those? Of that? I'd like tosee those. I'd like to see those.
We'll put them up oninstagram. Terry and Charlie were
attracted to the LewisRehoboth beach area for its easy
(01:52):
access to atlantic beaches,outdoor spaces, LGBTQ welcoming environment,
small, quaint towns, and thelow cost of living. Affordable housing
near the beaches coupled withlow taxes and availability of healthcare
options makes it a primeretirement spot, especially for gay
retirees. Okay, let's get intothe nitty gritty. I'm really excited
(02:18):
and really interested in whatLewis is all about. So, Terry, welcome.
And can you describe theclimate and geography of Lewis, Delaware?
What can retirees expect interms of weather year round?
Sure. Just to put it inperspective, Lewis is at the entrance
(02:40):
to the Delaware Bay, which isjust south of the Delaware river.
From Philadelphia, we're onthe east coast, very close to a nearby
town, Rehoboth beach, and theother beach towns that run up and
down the Delaware coast toVirginia and to New Jersey. We're
right across the bay from CapeMay, New Jersey, and the Jersey beaches,
so we're definitely a beachresort type area. Here in Delaware,
(03:06):
the weather is pretty much midatlantic east coast weather. We do
get the change of seasonshere. We get some snow, but because
we're close to the ocean, it'sgenerally in rain. We get more rain
than snow. We do get a lot ofwinds from the nor'easter storms
that go up the coast. We dohave a threat of hurricanes from
time to time, but normallythey miss this particular. We're
(03:28):
kind of tucked into the midatlantic area, so we don't get direct
hits usually like they do inFlorida. But the weather is actually
pretty, pretty nice. Itdoesn't get extremely cold. It doesn't
get extremely hot in thesummer. We do get humidity right
now this time of year,September, October and in the late
spring are the best times tobe here. The weather's pretty fixed,
(03:50):
very pleasant, and we had asmany tourists in the off season.
So what do you have now? Likein the seventies?
Yeah, seventies, maybe up toabout 80. A low humidity. The evenings
are cool. They drop down inthe upper fifties. Just really nice
outside fall weather.
And this is, we're recordingthis on September 29, so that's pretty
(04:12):
cool. It certainly beatsPhoenix's 117 degree weather right
now. So let's talk a littlebit about climate change. How has
climate change impacted lifein Lewis, particularly with issues
like flooding or rising sealevels? Are these concerns for retirees
moving into the area?
(04:33):
Well, yes, you got toremember, Delaware is fairly flat
and we don't have very manymountainous areas at all. There's
a lot of wetlands along thecoast. So with the climate change,
we are seeing stronger stormsthat come up the coast. The nor'easter,
which is basically a winterhurricane. We'll get some pretty
(04:55):
severe thunderstorms throughthe summer. There's always a threat
of tornado activity. It hasn'tbeen a direct hit in Lewis in many
years, but it is somethingthey're seeing more of as the climate.
You know, climate changeaffects the weather. We are seeing
flooding, too, with, when youget these heavy storms. And because
we get it actually floods morefrom the wind pushing from in, from
(05:17):
the ocean, it pushes thewater, it makes the tides higher.
So you may not even get a lotof rain, but you will get an effect
from the wind and the tides.So we'll get a lot of coastal tide
flooding, they call it here,where it'll come into up the little
creeks and it'll flood in thelow areas. So obviously people don't
(05:38):
build in those areas or theytry not to, but some of the older
communities that are too closeto that are being more affected.
It'll flood some of thehighways. We've had instance, there's
a major road that connectsfrom Lewis down through Rehoboth
all the way to Virginia, andit hugs the ocean of the coast. And
(05:59):
we've had areas where thedunes have been broken through by
storms, and the, the road hasbeen flooded, so they're working
on trying to fix that, butit's a never ending battle with the
eroding beaches. The stormscome and take the beach away, then
we pump more sand in, spend alot of money to dredge, and then
the next season we get another storm.
So, yeah, never ending isright. And how close are you to the
(06:23):
beach or to the ocean?
Lewis is right at the mouth ofthe Delaware bay and the ocean. It's
where the two meet. So we're.The town itself is about a mile,
if that, from the actualbeaches. Lewis is about 6 miles from
Rehoboth beach, which isdirectly on the ocean. And that's
(06:44):
a larger, much larger beachtown type environment over there.
But they're kind of a sistercity to us. So we, we share a lot
of the same facilities andeverything. Right. So that, yeah,
that's much closer, but, yeah.And the thing is, this part of Delaware,
we have the ocean front, youknow, ocean beaches. We also have
(07:04):
two large bays that are rightbehind the towns. So there's Rehoboth
Bay, and then there's a canalthat connects them from Lewis to
Rehoboth Bay and from theDelaware Bay to Rehoboth Bay. So
there's plenty of waterfront,if you will, areas, properties, and
opportunity for boating andkayaking and that sort of thing.
(07:27):
Are there any localinitiatives or infrastructure projects
addressing the effects ofclimate change in Lewis?
Yeah, the cities and thecounty governments are aware of it.
They're definitely, they'vegot commission, so they've got committees
working on that, working withthe federal government to try to
figure a way to lessen theimpacts of that. There's initiatives
(07:49):
for offshore windmills farmsas we try to work on the electrical
grid here. The biggestchallenge really kind of linked to
climate change as well, is thesomewhat over development of the
area that's happening, wherethey loosened the rules on development
over the years. And so they'removing into wetland areas and taking
(08:09):
up a lot of the free spacethat we need for the rain and the
runoffs and so forth. Sothat's having an impact already.
And there's beginning. Thetide's turning a bit on that here
politically, and it's startingto push back on some of that.
That. Okay, so the secret isout about Lewis. Everybody loves
to. They heard about Lewis andthey're wanting to move there.
(08:32):
Absolutely.
So let's talk about the costof living. What is the cost of living
like? And give us an ideaabout the what the median home value
for a single family home is.And if you have any rentals, what
a typical one to two bedroomrental might cost.
Right. So the county thatLewis is in is Sussex county and
(08:55):
a large part of the county andthe state is still very rural, a
lot of farmland, a lot of cornand wheat type places. Farms, however,
along the coast is where yousee most of the housing and the development.
And there, here in Lewis andthe areas right around it, you're
(09:15):
looking at for a three bedroomsingle family home, average around
$430,000. You can get cheaperthan that if you go a little farther
away from the coast and moreinland. But for our community, that
has its own challenges becauseit is a very rural area. And what's
happening is the farms arebeing sold to developers who then
(09:37):
will go in and put a couplehundred houses on an old farm. And
they're basically, you can geta new build, you can get a new house
here, a three bedroom startingin somewhere, some places in the
mid to upper 300s.
Wow.
But you're, you know, you'reseveral miles from the beach. Plus
it adds the traffic, makes ita little difficult in the summer.
(09:58):
But yeah, if you're lookingfor that kind of a community where
you have, you know, largenumber of homes and a kind of a no.
Kind of no trees farmland.
Right. Like a master plan thing.
Yeah. Now if you want a homethat's close to the beach and in
the towns of Lake Lewis,you're looking upwards to a million
and a half to get really closeto the ocean. And that's for pretty
(10:22):
much, you know, regular sizedhouse or even a small cottage in
some places, but very high. Toget those, you can get a condominium.
You can rent. You can rent ahouse here annually for probably
two, maybe $2,500 to 3000 amonth. And you can get a condo, an
apartment about like a twobedroom apartment, a condo or something
(10:44):
for maybe up to upwards to $2,000.
So prices have gone up prettymuch, yeah, when the secret gets
out.
So it was really hot beforethe interest rates went up. They're
starting to now. I wasstarting, you know, I expect we'll
start to see that to drop andthey'll pick up again. It was very
there for a while, like rightafter the pandemic. It was difficult
(11:07):
to even find a house herebecause the demand was so high and
the volume supply was very,you know, very low number of houses
on the market. That's whyPenn. And you kind of have to make
that decision. Do you want toget an established house, which you
can get cheaper than thataverage rate, I believe.
Right.
Or do you want a new build? Alot of people want a brand new house.
(11:28):
That's kind of the big choicehere. There's plenty of new builds
still going in that you couldget. Find one pretty easily, probably,
but all depends what you'relooking for.
Gotcha. Okay. How do everydayexpenses like grocery and utilities
compare to other areas ofDelaware or to the national average?
(11:51):
Well, we're slightly higher,about 2% than some of the other places
or nationally, or 2% higherthan national and a little bit higher
than some of the neighboringstates. We don't have sales tax here,
so to me that's acounterweight. So I'm coming from
northern Virginia, outside ofWashington, DC. To me, this feels
like a much cheaper area tolive. I find personally, the expenses
(12:15):
have been a lot less andthere's plenty of. And then we have
a lot of outlet stores herebecause it is a resort area. So you
can, for clothing especially,and all of the name brand type things.
They have outlet stores here,so you can get a lot of deals on
clothing. At least here.Groceries are like everywhere else.
You know, they've gone up, butstill there's plenty of choices here.
(12:38):
Groceries. Groceries.
I was going to ask you that.
Yeah, we have all severalmajor of the chains and Costco there.
Competition.
Pardon me, do you have a Costco?
We don't have a Costco. Wehave a BJ's nearby. The Costco is.
We do have one upstate nearWilmington, which is about maybe
an hour from here, an hour anda half from here from Lewis. So that's
(13:02):
a day trip if you want to goto Costco.
Okay, that's funny. Okay.
There is talk of building onehere just outside of Lewis, but there
is an area that's looking todevelop for that kind of thing. So
we have our fingers crossed wemight get one in a couple of years.
But.
Do you have a trader Joe's?
No. What? We know no traderJoe's in this area.
(13:26):
Okay, let's talk about taxes.So taxes are a big concern for retirees.
Can you explain? I knowDelaware is. They don't have a state
tax, right?
Well, it's one of. It is oneof the pros of coming to Delaware
and why we have so manyretirees coming. Like I said, we
have no sales tax. Theproperty taxes and school taxes are
(13:48):
very low. Property taxes is 0.53%.
Wow.
So like a $200,000 home,you're going to pay about $1,600
a year.
Wow. That's incredible.
Yeah. Compared to New Jerseyor Pennsylvania, that's a big.
New Jersey is like sky high. Right.
And then on income taxes, theincome tax is two to 5%. It's graduated
(14:13):
or kind of a sliding scale. Soif you're under 60,000, you're going
to pay somewhere between twoand 5%. If you're over $60,000 a
year in income, the maximumincome tax would be about 6.6%.
Okay.
So it's not too bad. And thenthey also, they don't tax your Social
(14:33):
Security benefits here. Andyou can exclude 12,500 of your pension
or four hundred one k, thefirst twelve thousand five hundred
is excluded.
That helps.
So then they tax it. Thatother income tax rate after that.
That definitely helps foranybody who's 60 and above.
Oh, wow. Okay. It's not.
(14:54):
And then at 65, I believethey, they drop, they don't even
pay property tax.
Really.
At 65 over, there's a thing,an income level, but they have like
a tax. Yeah.
I mean, a homestead exemption.
Not sure.
Okay. All right. Well, that'spretty good. That's really good.
(15:18):
I mean, if over 65 and you'renot paying property tax or a low
property tax, that's great for me.
How about you?
How about pensions? Are theythe same as 401 ks and.
Yeah, that's the 12,500exemption. And then you get taxed
if they. Whatever your incomerate would be.
Awesome.
Income tax rate.
(15:40):
All right. Now, my favorite iswalkability. I don't know if Lewis
is. Tell me, does Lewis havelike a downtown? Is there a place
that you could walk todifferent bars, restaurants, coffee
shops or stores?
Yes. Lewis is very small town,and it's an old town. It's almost
(16:01):
400 years old, and it'sbasically pretty much at the same
place it's been all that time.It's like I said before, it's close
to the water, but the mainpart of the town where the business
district is just a coupleblocks long, and it's on primarily
two or three streets. So it'sa very concentrated area, easily
walkable. It's one of thebeautiful parts about Lewis that
(16:23):
everyone likes is it's a veryquaint, quiet little town that you
can walk. It looks beautiful.Homes, a mixture of victorian homes
and old historic homes. Andwe're right on the canal. So we have
some boats coming in and out.So it's a very pretty little town
to walk in. And we have anumber of shops and restaurants are
really good. We're gettingmore and more upscale restaurants
(16:44):
now in Lewis. So you haveplenty of that to walk to, parks.
And of course, the historicaldistrict that I'm familiar with is
very. Is right there downtown.And we have a lot of museums and
options there.
Cool. Very cool. Now, you needa car, right?
Pretty much. If you're goingto be going outside of the town.
(17:05):
I mean, unless you lived inthe town, you would still need to
get somewhere to get to thegrocery store.
So you need a car to.
Yeah.
Okay.
There is bus service. Localbus service. And then there's bus
service that goes take you upthrough Delaware, up towards Philadelphia.
But it's, you know, it's localbus service. It's not. If you're
coming from a city, it's notgoing to be anywhere on the level
(17:26):
that you're the right.
You used to. Very nice. Asmall, charming town. I love it.
Okay, so you need a car. Howclose is the mate is the nearest
airport? Is that in Wilmington?
Well, they have one that it'snot. If you're looking for an international,
(17:46):
like, big airport to makeyour. If you're going anywhere far,
Philly, Philadelphia would bethe closest one. It's about 78 miles.
So it's about two hour drivefrom here. From Lewis to Philadelphia.
You can get taxi or limoservice from Lewis up there. You
can also get a bus. It'll takeyou a lot longer on the bus.
Yeah.
Like multiple hours to getthere. But you're also not that far
(18:12):
from BWI, which is inBaltimore, from the Washington airports,
Washington, DC. So they're alittle further. About two and a half
hours away. So it'sdefinitely, you know, you got options
there. You can go toWilmington and take the train. And
the train will get you to NewYork or Philadelphia as well. You
can get hook up with thetrain. So I know people, friends
(18:35):
of mine that go to New YorkCity a lot. They'll go. They'll drive
to Wilmington, park at thetrain station, and take the train.
Wilmington doesn't have an airport.
They do, but it's not local,not a major airport. They have service
to Florida from there now.
Okay. Alrighty. And let's talkabout the LGBTQ community. I know
(19:01):
that Lewis and Rehoboth arevery LGBTQ friendly. I know at least
in Rehoboth, there is a lot ofbusinesses that are LGBTQ friendly.
Tell us a little bit aboutLewis and how that coincides, or
(19:22):
is it as friendly and do youhave, like, gay restaurants or gay
friendly bars?
Well, yeah, there isdefinitely a difference in vibe between
Lewis and Rehoboth Lewis ismuch more of a regular small town
that has a beach, we like tosay, versus a beach town. However,
(19:44):
we are seeing more and moreLGBTQ moving into the area in and
around Lewis. I live in thezip code of Lewis, and my community
is about 30% of our folks. Itis kind of a popular place for our
community to retire. We dohave a lot of retirees here, a lot
of lesbian couples and malecouples. So, as a result, we're seeing
(20:07):
that spread across the region,really. So Lewis is very welcoming
to the community. There aren'tthat. There aren't that many gay
owned places in Lewis proper,but there are in Rehoboth beach nearby.
But there. I mean, it's neverbeen an issue here. I mean, it's
a very inclusive, accepting. Yeah.
(20:29):
Yeah. And I know, I guess asRehoboth also gets so crowded, people
don't want to be in thecrowds, and then Lewis is really
not too far. How far is Lewisfrom Rehoboth?
6 miles.
Oh, that's nothing.
No. And if you take a bike,it's even faster. There's a bike
(20:49):
trail links the two townsalong the ocean, so there's a lot
of biking activity here, but.Yeah. And Rehoboth. And actually,
that, you know, in this partof the county, there's quite a few
organizations that have poppedup. You know, we have Camp Rehoboth,
which is like the gaycommunity center. They have a. A
(21:10):
whole host of programs andgroups and different activities.
For retirees especially. Wehave a good library system here that's
often used by everyone. Wehave various groups that all that
have formed up. Like, I belongto one that's for men over 55. Gay
men over 55. And it's calledthe coastal beach buddies. And we
(21:32):
go walk the boardwalk and have brunch.
That's nice.
Things like that. There's alot of social groups here for our
community, and pretty much anydifferent stripe you would want to
find, you'll find that there'splenty to do that way. And there's
a big support network for thecommunity. There's an MCC church
here in the area, in Lewis,for instance. So I think we're pretty.
(21:56):
Well, you won't have a problemfinding other folks.
Okay. I was going to say youdon't have. You know, it's pretty
easy to meet other LGBTQpeople in town.
Yeah. And it's a very friendlyenvironment, and, you know, people,
they're retired or they'rehere in the summer. That number swells
as we get visitors coming fromWashington and Philadelphia and New
(22:18):
York. We get a big influx of.So there's plenty of gay bars and
restaurants and clubs andactivities going on in Rehoboth,
especially in the summertime.So there's. And we have. Yeah, there's
all that.
Does Lewis have a pride orthey go to. Or they share it with,
like, Rehoboth?
They share it with Rehoboth?Pretty much. Rehoboth is the lead
(22:39):
for all of that sort of thing.I know. Okay, Lewis, if you picture,
too, the Lewis zip code wrapsaround Rehoboth. So Rehoboth is like
hugging the ocean beach, butthen anything that 2 miles out of
the town is going to beconsidered. Lewis.
Lewis.
So we're all kind of one.We're all. We're really together.
One family here.
Yeah. Yep. Very cool. Verycool. All right, so there is an LGBTQ
(23:04):
community. You can find gayfriendly bars and restaurants between
Lewis and Rehoboth, andthere's organizations and events
in Rehoboth as well for thecommunity. Do they have, like, a
LGBTQ center and is it in Rehoboth?
Yes, that's Camp Rehoboth.
(23:25):
Okay. Gotcha. All right, let'stalk about arts, culture, and dining.
Dining. One of my favoritesubjects. Okay. Do you have any art
scene or arts and culture theater?
We do have art scene here.Now, again, if you're coming from
(23:46):
an urban area or a largercity, it's not going to be on the.
Obviously, on the same level.We do have a very vibrant local theater
here called Clearspace, andthey're actually looking to expand
and build a new facility soon.And they provide theater throughout
the year, but especially inthe summer. They'll get summer stock
(24:07):
actors in from New York, andthey'll do several shows in the summertime.
And they also. They're aneducational theater, so they have
classes that people can take,and if you want to get involved that
way, or for younger people,like, they have a youth program in
the theater, so that's kind ofexciting. We also have a lot of local
artists, and so we have ourart shows. We have an artist guild
(24:31):
in Rehoboth that they havestudios and whatnot for the artists.
So we do have that. Museums wedo have. Again, we have. There's
a lot of history here. BeingDelaware is pretty old, so it's a
lot of that. If you'reinterested in that kind of colonial
or, you know, early 19thcentury type history of. We have
lots of that. A lot ofmaritime things, too. We have maritime
(24:52):
museums. If you're interestedin that, tell us.
A little bit about yourcolonial things that you do.
Yes, sir. Yeah. Historic Lewisis a society, it's a historical society
of Lewis and we have abouttwelve buildings that we own and
operate and we have several ofthem are open as museums. So I took
(25:15):
a tour, I took a walking toura couple years ago when we moved
here full time. I enjoyed thetour and I thought, well, I always
liked history so that lookslike something fun. And they get
to wear funny clothes so, youknow, who doesn't like to dress up,
so.
That's right.
So I volunteered. I did somework in their archives. They were
really fantastic archives inour history museum, which you could
(25:38):
spend days in there just goingdown rabbit holes. But eventually
they got me to put on theclothes and work as a docent. So
I'm a tour guide at some ofthe museums. And then we have an
old tavern that we bring tolife every weekend. So we actually
mix up old colonial drinks andI serve those as a barkeep and we'll
get.
That is so cool.
A lot of fun with that. And Ido right now we're in October, heading
(26:02):
into October, so we'll bedoing extra nighttime walking tours.
They're called the LegendsTour. So we give you history and
we sprinkle in a little ghoststories and we take you into some
of the haunted buildings.
I love that.
Yeah. So that's a lot of fun.It gives me something to do. Besides,
you can only eat so muchshrimp and sit on the beach so long.
Right.
And it sounds so much fun. Itreally. Yeah.
(26:23):
I get to meet people that way.I do. Like I miss a little bit. I
mean, it is a small townenvironment here. You're here a couple
years, you'll get to know alot of people. It's more like a.
What is it, six separate. Sixdegrees of separation here it's more
like two. So every, that is,you know, that could be a pro and
a con.
That's true. Everybody couldget into everybody's business.
(26:45):
Yeah, everybody knowseverybody. So somebody that knows
somebody.
Right.
So there's that. But it isnice to meet other people that come
in from time to time.
That's so great. I love that.All right, so how about dining options?
Talk about restaurants.
Well, this being a vacationdestination, we have a lot of good
(27:06):
restaurants and not just yourbeachy type restaurant. I mean, we
have plenty of those if youlike crabs and things like that.
But we also have high endrestaurants. And given that we have
so many people coming fromWashington, DC and Philadelphia.
We do have some pretty upscalerestaurants that are very nice, very
fine dining. It's great forour community as well. So Lewis has
(27:30):
added a few. We have this onecalled the harbor restaurant on the
canal, which is really quitebeautiful, has the best view of the
water in town. They're verygood. And we have. We have a great
indian restaurant, which isnice to have some diversity in the
area. So that's a verywonderful restaurant. We go to a
lot. We have some good. We'regetting some better asian style food
(27:53):
here now. So that's good. Wehave a couple good thai places, things
like that. Awesome. It's awide range, so you can go from anywhere,
from a good walkaway pizzashop, slice of pizza, up to, you
know, a two hour gourmetdinner. So it covers all the bases,
really, for a small town. It'squite impressive.
And that's within the Lewisarea, right?
(28:15):
Yes, they're all within thatlittle business district I was mentioning
a couple blocks from each other.
So do you know approximatelyhow many restaurants do you think
you have in Lewis? I knowLewis is a small town.
Oh, at least a dozen, 15.
Well, that's pretty good.Yeah, that's a nice size. That's.
(28:38):
Sure it is. And then Rehobothhas a ton, I.
Would think a lot more.
Yes, very nice.
You won't go hungry, andyou'll have plenty of variety. You
can you get into your circuitof where you go and your favorites,
but.
Very good. I'm getting hungryagain, as usual. How about healthcare?
(28:59):
So healthcare is reallyimportant. How far is the nearest
hospital? Tell us. Or howclose is the nearest hospital? And
is it accessible to Lewis? Arethere long waits for doctors? What
is the situation there?
Well, healthcare has actuallyreally improved here in the last
(29:22):
several years with an influxof retirees. They definitely have
a demand. So there is ahospital. It's been in Lewis for
over 100 years, and it's thelargest hospital in the southern
Delaware area. It's calledBeebe Hospital, and that's right
downtown Lewis. They keepexpanding. They've been building
(29:43):
like crazy. So they. They'veadded several. They've added a new
surgical hospital just outsideof town, actually just a block or
about a half a mile from myhouse. And they've opened up a lot
of other area walk in centersand places where, like, we can get
your blood work done and youcan do smaller procedures. They can
(30:03):
do more simple procedures. Soit's getting much more accessible
than it was maybe 20 yearsago. There's actually three hospitals
now, three medical businessesworking in the county, BB being the
largest. But there's anotherone that's moving its way into the
area. So it's to meet thedemand. I mean, it is a high demand,
(30:26):
especially with this. Andwe're getting more and more specialist
care here. So you're prettymuch find any specialist you would
need. Once you get into one ofthe systems and get your general
practice doctor, then it'smuch easier to get into all the other
places, like they'll get youreferrals everywhere. Recent survey
I saw that came out, we wereranked number two in the country
(30:47):
in hospital quality, numbersix in health care quality, and 9th,
best state for healthcare. Andwe have the 10th. We're ranked 10th
in the country for access. Sothings are definitely getting better
here. Now, that said, I mean,sometimes to get. Maybe the doctor
you want could be a bit of achallenge, or there have been, depending
(31:10):
on what needs. You have someof the specialists, it is a little
long, there's a bit of a waitto get into them, unless obviously,
if it's a critical situation,you'll get bumped up, but you may
wait long, especially forelective type surgeries. You might
be on a wait for a littlewhile, but that's getting better
and better. They also have, Ithink, what they call boutique healthcare,
(31:32):
where you can pay, you paylike an extra annual fee in order
to get access to quicker.Yeah. So that's becoming a thing
here now, too.
Yeah, they boutique or concierge?
Exact. Concierge. That's the word.
Concierge, yeah.
So there's definitely peoplein the area that can afford that
and choose to go that route,but the average person can get good
(31:55):
care here.
It's a fancy way to say, oh,pay me $700 and I'll get you in faster.
Yeah. I will say, though,another thing medically, though,
it's not for people, is thisis a very heavily dog friendly area.
I mean, there's just abouteverybody has a pet, and so as a
result, with more and morepeople bringing pets, it's actually
(32:17):
harder to get into a vetappointment than it is a person.
I believe it. We also have ashort. We don't have good emergency
care for pets yet in thisarea. I think we did, and it just
got overwhelmed. And so youdo. The closest emergency hospital,
really, for a pet is in Dover,Delaware, which is about 45 minutes
(32:38):
away from Lewis. So you haveto. There's something to take into
account, especially if youhave elderly pets. I think that'll
get better in time and peoplewill start to meet, you know, they'll
move in and meet, try to meetthat demand, but just throw that
out there.
That's a little gap out there.But as far as, like if you need a
cardiologist or dermatologist,any of those specialties, there's
(33:01):
no problem really getting oneand getting an appointment. What
do you think? Two weeks for anappointment or more or less.
If you're an established, onceyou're an established patient, you
don't have any. You really,it's pretty quick. You can get one
in a couple weeks. If you'rebrand new and you're, you know, you
get into it, they might, youmight be waiting, you know, to start
(33:23):
up with a cardiologist. Youmight have to wait a month or two.
Yeah. Okay.
And also I think it depends ifyou coming in and you still have
private health insurance, youmight get a little faster onboarding
than if you were Medicare.
Just have Medicaid. Medicare.
Yeah.
Okay. That's good to know.That's good to know.
So, but also then remember,you're not far from, if you have
(33:47):
a very serious like cancersituation or something, you do have,
you know, we're not that farfrom Philly or Washington or places.
Like that has great.
Yeah.
Medical. And how far seems again.
Yeah.
How far is it? 2 hours.
Yeah, 2 hours.
Okay. All right. Awesome.Crime and safety. I wouldn't think
(34:12):
there's a big crime.
Issue in Lewis, not in termsof like violent crime. We don't really
have that. We have your, youknow, you're going to have your burglaries
and break and a lot of carmostly would be car break ins for
people that are not even abreak. And they say break in, but
people tend to leave theircars open and then leave them outside.
(34:34):
And that's not the best,especially in the summertime season
when you got a lot of peoplecoming in from, you know, out of
town.
Right.
So it's a big influx ofpeople. So you're going to see an
influx in crime of smallnature, but there's not the violent
like attacks and shootings andthings like that.
Right. Like you hear in big cities.
(34:54):
No, there's, there's some drugissues here. Again, when you get
the influx of.
Folks from other places.
Yeah. But it's not, you know,nothing like you would, you know,
think about it. Oh, a drugproblem there. That would say.
Right. Or maybe stealing anAmazon package off your porch.
Yeah.
Some petty theft. More. Moreor less. Right.
(35:16):
Yeah, more that. But it's, Imean, I feel perfectly safe walking
around in Lewis, downtownLewis at night.
So if you had to walk your dogoutside your home at two in the morning,
you wouldn't feel.
Not a problem.
You wouldn't feel. You'd feelsafe. Okay. That's good to know.
So there's no real crimeconcerns that prospective retirees
(35:40):
should be aware about. Arethere some neighborhoods that are
safer than others?
Well, sure. And, you know,especially if you're LGBTQ, you're
gonna like anywhere else inthe country, you're going to look
around, you're going to beaware of the surroundings. If you're
what I call the bubble. If youstay within the bubble of the resort
(36:01):
areas, you know, right herealong the coast, you're going to
be fine, because in somecases, where your community is going
to be 30, 40% your peoplelgbt. Right. So you'll feel perfectly.
I mean, it's kind of unusualnot to see us or not to see gay couples
around here.
I like that.
Yeah. You go in a restaurant,and maybe 50% of the patrons there
(36:23):
are lgbt. And so, you know,that's it. But if you're going out,
if you're looking, maybeyou're trying to get a cheaper home
and you're moving to some ofthese smaller towns in the world.
The towns are changing. Wehave a place called Milton just up
the.
Oh, yeah, I heard of Milton.
A few miles north of Lewis andanother place called Milford, which
(36:43):
is just a little bit pastthat. Milton has a new theater there
that's been doing very welland attracting a lot of LGBTQ patrons
and also people moving therenow. And Milton's under a bit of
a housing boom. So if you likeeven a smaller town feel than Lewis
and you want that kind ofcountry, small town feel, maybe not
(37:08):
quite mayberry, but, you know.
It'S mayberry to me.
All right. But it. Some peoplelike the small. You know, that smallness.
Sure.
That's a really nice place togo, and it's up and coming, and there's
a lot of expense, a lot ofexciting plans for that town, and
they're getting more and moregay folks up there, as you know,
around a lot of these towns,so. But, you know, there's other
areas like you go down to.Over towards the southern southwestern
(37:32):
part of Delaware, you'regetting into, like, Salisbury. Oh,
that's not a good example. Butsome of these little western towns
that are still kind of notright there with us. You know, you're.
You got to be careful whereyou end up.
It's. Yeah, that's pretty mucheverywhere you go outside of the
town or city and in the ruralareas, and you got to be aware of
(37:57):
where you're going.
I mentioned Salisbury there. Imean, Salisbury is in Maryland. Yeah.
It's about an hour and a half.Yeah, a little over an hour from
Lewis down. It's just on theborder, just over the border from
Delaware, because Delaware,Virginia, and Maryland all meet together
here in what we call Delmarva,which is the big peninsula. It has
all three states, butSalisbury has a university there,
(38:20):
so that's obviously auniversity town. So if you're looking
for more that kind of. Youwant to be closer to, like, a university
environment, you'd want to gomaybe down into Salisbury, right
over the border, or rightacross the border into Delaware.
It'll be pretty good. Andyou'll find, I'm sure, that they
have a lot going on down there.
Yeah.
As well.
I never heard of Salisbury,Maryland, until I met somebody and
(38:44):
we did a podcast, believe itor not, on Salisbury. I was pretty
surprised, actually. Yeah.
It's close to the Marylandbeaches. Ocean City, Maryland, which
is a very large beach town. Sothat there, again, if you like that
kind of a beach townexperience, you want to, you know,
then the further south you go,the more you're going to get that
(39:06):
here in Lewis and Merhobethand along the Delaware coast, they're
much quieter, smaller towns.We don't have the big high rise hotels.
They're small. They're Airbnb.You know, like Airbnbs. They're bed
and breakfast, a lot of bedand breakfast places that are really
charming. You can rent alittle beach cottage in these. Both
of the Louis and Rehoboth, youcan rent those for the summer or,
(39:28):
you know, for a week. Sothat's a really nice. Even if you
don't move here, that's awonderful place to visit on occasion.
It's quaint. As opposed tothat resort type, ocean city type
place. Yeah, I kind of, youknow, even though I'm a city boy,
I kind of. I think I prefer aLewis Rehoboth type place. It's just
(39:53):
quiet and peaceful and soundslike a really great place to retire.
We like it.
Yeah. All right. So how aboutyour final thoughts? What words of
wisdom can you tell ouraudience if they're considering moving
to Lewis?
(40:14):
Well, I think what I wasstarting to go there was with the
small town environment, ifyou're coming from a more urban area,
you know, it is definitely, wecall it the lower, slower. Delaware
is what they call this area.And they mean that things, things
are just on a different level.Things don't go very fast here. So
if you're especially, like, ifyou're getting better. Huh? How about
(40:37):
in a restaurant? Oh, well,depending. Or if they've gone fishing.
But no, the high, the goodrestaurants are just fine. But I'm
thinking more in terms of,like, if you're getting contract
work done here, which is,that's a little, that's getting a
little challenging with somany homes here now to make, you
know, if you have a skill orif they have a, people have those
(40:58):
kinds of skills, this is theplace to come. But, you know, it
just, it takes a while to getthem and they take their time sometimes
in doing repairs and thingslike that. But, but I would say if
you a little slower lifestyle,which is still sophisticated enough
that, you know, we have ourtheater, we have our good restaurants
and all of that, you know,just bear in mind that if you're
(41:19):
moving to an area like this isa summer vacation destination. So
in the summer, it's going toget very busy. We're going to get
a huge influx of people.Traffic's going to be very awful
for a couple months. You won'tbe able to get into your favorite
restaurants as easily. Youknow, they start charging for parking
downtown Lewis and Merhowthduring the summer months. So you
(41:39):
just take that into accountand you kind of work, if you're retired,
you can easily work your lifearound that. The other thing is that
I really love about here isthat we have so much of outdoor activities
that are available. If youlike that sort of thing. You like
to be able to hike, you liketo be able to ride a bike. We have
tons of bike trails allaround, and it's pretty level, so
(42:01):
it's pretty easy even forretirees. The bike trails are really
well maintained, sometimesbetter than the roads. And Delaware
is full of really nice stateparks and local parks that are really
maintained well and havetrails that you can really explore.
If you like to be on thewater. We have a lot of boat options
here. You can take the ferryover to Cape May, New Jersey, which
(42:26):
is always a fun trip. And thenif you take your car on the ferry,
then you can go on up toAtlantic City or up the coast of
Jersey. So it's a quick andfun way to get to New Jersey from
here. So lots of things like that.
So what do you think attractsthe gay? I'm always fascinated of
(42:46):
how the gay community getsattracted to certain places. And
Lewis being one, you said,like, you know, you walk into a restaurant,
and half the people in therestaurant are lgbtQ.
I think it's, I think itstarted because this was a beach
area, and the beaches herealways have been a pretty, pretty
(43:07):
nice, it used to be a veryquiet, sleepy town. Rehov. And so
the fact that it was, and thefact that it's so close to Washington,
DC and Baltimore andPhiladelphia, it pulls people from
those cities. People thatdidn't want to go to the Jersey Shore
maybe didn't feel ascomfortable going to some of the
places in the Jersey shorehere. They just kind of gravitated
(43:28):
to the Delaware beaches. AndOcean City, Maryland, has always
been a popular beach spot.And, I mean, I can remember when
I was in high school, that'swhere we went after graduation, went
to Ocean City, Maryland, andthen these other towns kind of, you
kind of passed through them toget there. And so I think what happened
is just some people startedcoming to Verhobot. They were well,
and they started openbusinesses. They were received well
(43:50):
by the local government. Now,it took a while for the people, some
of the locals to embrace that,but over time, we just sort of moved
in. And that's really whatCamp Rehoboth was formed as an organization
to work with the town ofRehoboth to make and Lewis to make
this a safe community foreverybody and to work. And so there
(44:11):
was a real effort on thatfront. And then as people just word
spread. And back 2030 yearsago, you could get a really, you
could buy a cheap house inthese little towns.
Oh, yeah.
And people from the citiescame here and bought houses, and
then it became, it just sortof became word of mouth, I guess.
It's, I was just going to say.
Once you get established, itspreads. And, I mean, you know, we
(44:35):
have whole areas that arevery, now it's getting more and more,
you know, everywhere else, youknow, you're not seeing the gay bars
as much anymore. So we're kindof, we're kind of in all of the places
now, too. So it's the samehere. It used to be you kind of,
when you came to these places,you would go to the gay restaurant
or you go to the gay bar.Well, now everybody goes everywhere.
(44:56):
And everybody's, we gotstraight coming to all the gay places.
They come to the, and there'sa lot of drag shows here, so, and
that kind of entertainment.And you see a lot of straight couples
coming to that. So it's anice, it's always felt like a, where
everybody kind of live and letlive kind of feel. At least that's
how I feel about it in bothLouis and the surrounding area here.
(45:17):
So I think that's attractiveto retirees, especially because it
felt that's when my partnerand I were looking for a place. We
just. It was like a no brainerbecause we always felt safe here
and welcome, and you didn'tfeel like you had to hide yourself.
So that's great. Spread the gay.
Yeah.
That'S wonderful. I thinkLewis and Delaware itself is very
(45:41):
attractive to people becauseof the tax situation. No, no tax.
Would you agree with that?
Yes.
Okay.
That's the number one thingyou will hear from people that retire
here. It's because of the lowtaxes, especially the property tax.
We hear nightmares of peoplecoming here from New Jersey and Pennsylvania
(46:02):
and other higher tax places.
I've been looking all over thecountry, and then I get cost of living,
and, you know, everythinglooks good, and maybe with cost of
living a little bit high, andthen I look at the property tax,
and I'm, like, blown out ofthe water. I'm like, holy moly, this
(46:23):
is crazy. You know? So, yeah,taxes is you have to look at everything
where you're retiring, safetynow, climate change, LGBTQ community,
whether it's, you know, safeor not, everything we have to. There's
like, it limits the bucketlist, put it that way. So.
(46:46):
Absolutely.
All right. Well, Terry, thankyou so much for coming to the podcast,
and we enjoyed and goteducated. I'd like to see some pictures
of you dressed up in yourhistorical garb, so that will be
fun.
Yeah.
And thank you for everything,and I appreciate it very much.
(47:08):
Well, if you get to Lewis,stop by the tavern, and I'll set
you up with the groganite.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Allright, well, thank you.
Thank you.
Bye bye.
Thank you for listening to thewhere do gays retire? Podcast. If
you enjoyed today's episode,please subscribe to our podcast and
(47:28):
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