|
|
 |
|
| First Person: Money & Meaning |
Patrimony and Partnership
Elizabeth Giffin Flint
11/01/2005
|
Elizabeth Giffin Flint is a third-generation Californian and a member
of an extended family that stretches from Los Angeles to Steinbeck country in the Salinas Valley and beyond. This family, like many with legacies of property left by earlier generations, struggles to strike the right balance between sentimental attachment to family heritage and prudent management of valuable assets.
We would like to think of inherited property as easy money. One day, we wake
up and are considerably wealthier than we were when we went to sleep the night
before. We think we will treat this property as an asset and will make rational
business decisions to limit our risk and maximize our investment
potential.
 | | THE BUILDING housing the Santa Cruz Market has been in the family for generations, a cause of both pride and headaches. |
In reality, however, business decisions involving inherited
property are not easily made. The assets our loved ones leave to us often come
with an emotional price tag, one that challenges and distorts our careful
investment calculations. In my case, this sentimental cost pits financial
prudence against family mythology and tradition and, quite frankly, I’m not at
all sure which one will, or should, prevail.
I am lucky. I like being a
member of my extended family, and I enjoy our family mystique. It started with
my grandparents, Bob and Gladys, who both left hardscrabble Midwest childhoods
to pursue the California dream. They met in the 1920s while working in an oil
field in what is now Long Beach. They married soon after and settled in Goleta,
a small town just outside of Santa Barbara.
My grandparents formed an
enviable 58-year partnership, the center of which was family—primarily three
sons and their wives and children—and their business empire. My grandfather
started out as a welder and, through hard work, brains and some luck, eventually
owned a business and several investment properties. My grandparents’ prosperity,
even during the Great Depression, allowed them to raise their children and
provide shelter for their extended family in a classic ranch house at the
center of a large citrus orchard. They were fortunate to enjoy California during
an idyllic time—before it became saturated with houses, freeways and the
inescapable latte-swilling, cell-phone-wielding, SUV-driving masses.
| We have always gotten by on good faith and a handshake agreement.
To
suggest that we need anything more is to challenge my grandpa’s
way of
doing business. |
My
grandpa eventually bought the airport hangar that housed the airplane that first
flew mail into Santa Barbara. He moved this odd structure to downtown Goleta and
turned it into what is now the Santa Cruz Ranch Market. This building has been
deemed a historical landmark; there is a nice plaque in the front attesting to
that fact. My family does not run the market; we lease the building to another
family that has run the market for decades.
Thanks to the lasting impact my
grandparents had on this area, in 1999 we were named the Goleta Pioneer Family
of the Year. Many of my uncles and cousins have stayed here, proudly following
in my grandparents’ entrepreneurial footsteps. Likewise, I started my law career
in Santa Barbara hoping to continue in the family tradition. To my delight,
complete strangers would recognize my last name and comment favorably about my
family.
Unforeseen Costs
My grandparents died 20 years ago and left the market in
equal shares to their three sons, one of whom was my father. One son passed away
five years ago, and my father died a year later. The market is now owned by my
Aunt Mary, Uncle Don and by my three brothers and me. I appreciate that my
grandparents were smart enough to buy this property and that my dad was nice
enough to leave me a share of it. My job in managing this asset is primarily to
serve as the family communication conduit (I telephone everyone when a decision
has to be made) and to do some minor lawyering. Other than that, all I do is
spend the rent check I receive every month.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
