The extended Romney family at their vacation home on the shore of Lake Winnipesaukee… (Jon Moe/ASSOCIATED PRESS )
WOLFEBORO, N.H. — This weekend, Mitt Romney is starting his annual summer vacation on his lakefront compound here — a week of fun and family, though not entirely carefree.
The Romneys, 30 in all these days, spend their time away from the stresses of everyday life — like, say, wrapping up the Republican nomination for president — by following a highly orchestrated, highly competitive regimen of sports and games known as the “Romney Olympics.”
The Romney Olympics have long included a mini-triathlon of biking, swimming and running that pits Mitt and his five sons and their wives against one another. But after Mitt once nearly finished last, behind a daughter-in-law who had given birth to her second child a couple of months earlier, the ultra-competitive and self-described unathletic patriarch expanded the games to give himself a better shot.
Now they also compete to see who can hang onto a pole the longest, who can throw a football the farthest and who can hammer the most nails into a board in two minutes — not exactly the kind of events they’ll be giving out gold medals for in London this month.
By day, the Romneys kayak and water ski — one sport at which Mitt excels — play tennis and basketball, stage a “home-run derby” and horse around on a slip-and-slide. Most of the grandchildren (there are now 18) put on a talent show on a stage that Papa, as they call Mitt, constructed in the backyard. And he helps them roast s’mores over a campfire and leads them on treasure hunts. He grills chicken and salmon and teaches the kids how to drive his lawn tractor.
At night, the adults gather for family meetings, with each evening focused on a frank and full discussion of a different son’s career moves and parenting worries.
Each member of the family picks a daily chore from a “chore wheel,” so as to share cleaning tasks evenly. And before anyone departs, everyone poses on the lawn for a portrait for that year’s Romney family Christmas card. The grandchildren coordinate outfits; last summer, the girls wore matching orange and yellow polka-dotted dresses and the boys, blue checkered shirts.
How Romney vacations at his $8 million estate on Lake Winnipesaukee — with his time structured around competitive sports, household chores and group activities — offers a rare window into the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s rhythms and proclivities.
Even as the close-knit clan embraces the childhood pastimes of a bygone era, summers here serve to enforce the bond of the primacy of this family. Trips to Wolfeboro are controlled and mandatory. There is no opting out.
One summer when Romney’s eldest son, Tagg, now 42, was working for the Los Angeles Dodgers, he told his father he wouldn’t make it to Wolfeboro. Baseball, after all, is a summer sport, and he didn’t think he could take a week off in the middle of the season.
“My dad said, ‘No, you will make it,’ ” Tagg recalled in an interview. So he showed up, noting, “I had to beg forgiveness from my bosses at the Dodgers.”
Other political families have had their athletic pursuits — the Kennedys at Hyannis Port, Mass., and the Bushes at Kennebunkport, Maine — but it’s not clear if they were as highly organized as the Romney Olympics.
A couple of little things will be different this summer at Camp Romney. For one, Papa is the presumptive nominee, and talk of vice presidential possibilities and other pressing concerns could filter into the family conversation. Also joining the fun will be an entourage of Secret Service agents, standing guard on the secluded property, with a hungry press corps lurking nearby — perhaps even watching the house from boats offshore.
Tagg Romney said the family is “focused on getting him elected, and we’re not focused on anything beyond that. We will not talk about if he wins, what does it mean for the family. We think it’s bad form to talk about that stuff if you don’t know whether you’ll get there or not.”
Romney’s 13-acre estate features a six-bedroom house, a horse stable with guest apartments above it, a $630,000 boat house, tennis and volleyball courts and a shoreline stretching 768 feet, more than double the length of a football field, according to public property records.
Romney and his wife, Ann, purchased the home in 1997 for $2.5 million and later bought adjoining land. This year, records show, the estate was assessed at $8 million.
It’s a property big enough to fit everyone, although the five sons have been e-mailing to negotiate sleeping arrangements. Some grandchildren will be relegated to couches and air mattresses.
Mitt Romney first vacationed in Wolfeboro with his father, George, at the estate of family friend J.W. Marriott, the hotel magnate. Over the years, many other well-to-do Mormon families have made the town their summer home, too, and on Sundays the Romneys join them at church on North Main Street.
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