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A Family Sanctuary is the home that every child refers to when they move out. It is a place of permanence and refuge where all family members are welcome and belong. It is a vital asset for building generational wealth and a dynasty.
The family sanctuary will serve and a pillar of strength for your family. It can take many forms, but no matter what, it is your family’s home. Originally I believed Dynastic land to be the only path to having a long term family home, but I have since found reality to differ from this initial observation.
The Power of a Sanctuary
The family sanctuary is a ‘paradise’ of your creation, whatever you have in your mind. It allows your children to get off to the right start in life and provides a place to return to for gatherings and for forming new, happy memories. It is a cultural mecca for your dynasty.
The Sanctuary can also transfer wealth in 2 ways for those that stay there. The first is a transfer of time by the distribution of chores(either by sharing or by outsourcing them for the wealthier among us.). This frees time up for study, work, business growth, and personal development. The other type of wealth transfer is early life transitional transfer. By deferring the costs of housing, especially in early adult life, more personal wealth is freed up to be put towards investment and personal housing.
By having family members pay for shelter in the family sanctuary(which I’ll cover later in this post) wealth also stays within the family coffers. This stops the outflow of capital into the pockets of others and keeps money within the family to build generational wealth. Again not all memeber will live in the family sanctuary..but let’s leave it at that for now. I’ll talk about larger and more mature dynasties later in this post.
Familial Strength
Creating this sanctuary for your family is incredibly important to form a dynasty. It is a pillar of strength for your family to build from. A cultural mecca. A place of belonging and refuge for all family members. It also serves as a place for everybody to gather for events such as Christmas and birthdays, family council meetings or for family trips.
While it isn’t a necessity, it can serve as a multi-generational home. With Grandparents, parents, and children living under one roof, or on one piece of land or even in one apartment building.
But first and foremost, it should be the place your family members have in mind when they think of home.
Larger Families and Succession
As you family grows and matures, unless you have a multi door complex, a farm or a large compound, it is impractical to have everybody live together.
Even if you did have a facility to house the eventual multitude of branches of families in your dynasty, they will all most likely not even want to live together. That’s OK. It will usually be up to council to decide who gets to reside in the family sanctuary.
When your family is first forming a dynasty, it will naturally be the founding parents. And the kids get older and inevitably move away into homes of their own(which may be family assets too) the founding parents will stay in the sanctuary.
As the torch is handed form the foundling parents to the next patriarch and matriarch of the dynasty it would be ideal and symbolic for them to live in the sanctuary with their branch of the dynasty. If this isn’t ideal or practical, it’s then up to the council to determine which of the next generation will live in the sanctuary, and what kind of rent shall be paid in order to live there.
If nobody wants to, then it can serve as a holiday home or, depending on the property type, be leased or rented out to tenants. This is the worst case and should be avoided at all costs, however. Doing this will turn your family sanctuary into just another asset.
Categories of Sanctuaries
There are many types of sanctuaries. From small places to large. Typically with more mature and larger families, you’re going to want to have a larger property to suit. These don’t have to be anything opulent or obverse.
They should be subtle if you’re following the grey man philosophy anyway. There shouldn’t be undue attention to your family’s wealth if you want to keep a low profile.
The key component is actually owning the land the sanctuary is upon. This is one of the key tenets of any venture: control. The more of it you hold and are in control of, the better off you will be in the long run. When you start giving up liberty, you put yourself and your family’s security and freedoms at the mercy of others – and they have their own agendas in mind, not your family’s.
So there are 3 core types of sanctuaries: The Single Roof, the Multi-Door, and Dynastic Land
Single Roof Family Sanctuary
A small single roof, but for the right family, this is a sanctuary.
The single roof is exactly what it sounds like. A classic approach to a sanctuary. It is a home with preferably ample living space. Ideally, it will have a decent yard and space for children to play and grow.
The size of the single roof is going to vary with a family. Some families may prefer small houses and large yards, others like large houses with a pool, some even go so far as to have mansions. It can take many forms. But as long as it is a place of security, belonging and has space for your entire family.
Multi-Door Family Sanctuary
Even one floor of this building would count as a multi-door sanctuary
This is something like an apartment complex or a multifamily home. On a smaller level, they may be a single floor of an apartment building. As long as your family can actually own a slice of the land the building is upon, then these are acceptable.
The bonus of a multi-door approach is that if family members are not using one of the doors, it can be rented out to provide an income to the family as a whole. This helps keep things fairer in the long run.
Even a trailer park or a small housing development can serve as a multi-door sanctuary. Imagine owning a street with your family name on it.
Dynastic Land Family Sanctuary
Ahh, the dream.
The final sanctuary, Dynastic land, is a little different to multidoor in the fact that is primarily a large parcel of land. Th ink of the family farm. This would be dynastic land. You can build multiple homes on one piece of land that serve as mini sanctuaries for each branch of the family, with one main house that serves as the head house of the bundle.
Dynastic land has the added benefit of being able to produce an income as well. Be in from livestock, an orchard, crops, timber forests or some other land-intensive business. These pursuits can also be a part of family tradition, living off the land to feel the members of the family. You may also choose to have homes which are let out as well for a more passive type of income, but then you’re approaching multi-door again.
My Choice
Personally, we are not at the level where this is a priority, and if you’re only just starting on your generational wealth journey, there are plenty of other things to prioritize too.
We are actually planning on delaying gratification and living in our smaller home for some time while we decide what the right path is for us. This delayed approach allows us to build wealth at an incredible pace as we are mortgage free. This opens our options up considerably for future Family Sanctuary selection.
Ideally though, we’d like a parcel of land with multiple homes on it.
2023 update: We have since purchased a parcel of 10 Acres with a home on it. While we doubt we’ll stay here, it provides a great place to raise out children away from the cities, while taking a lot of dependencies into our own hands.
Where
Where you decide to set up your sanctuary is entirely up to you. Maybe the heart of your family culture is in the city. Perhaps you prefer the suburbs or remote countryside. The where doesn’t matter entirely.
It can definitely help if your sanctuary is in a place of relative freedom, where you are able to do as you please with the property. Who doesn’t want to have control over their property?
But at its heart, its location should be where you and your family feel comfortable. Somewhere you can get a place that is affordable while being comfortable. You don’t want to have to walk outside spraying and praying.
If your family isn’t comfortable living in the middle of nowhere, then you shouldn’t buy in the middle of nowhere.
Also, don’t forget that opulence can encroach on your security as well. If you’re attracting unwanted attention, then you can put your family’s sense of security can be jeopardized.
Features
Your Family sanctuary should represent the culture of your family. If one of your family hobbies is to garden, then gardens are obviously a must. Plan ahead for a larger family if you have one, and have gardens enough so that family members can always come home to help in the garden and take some produce with them.
This could be your family sanctuary garden some day.
If your family is more of the sporting type, then build your property to suit. Maybe your family loves watching movies together or gaming together. You can build a room or add a detached building to accommodate this aspect of your families culture. Imagine your family coming to the family sanctuary’s games room or private theater each week to spend time together. Whatever features you add, they should suit your family, and have them wanting to come over as frequently as possible.
It should be a place of memories, and permanence. It should be the kind of place your family wants to hold onto forever.
It should be tailored to your family. It isn’t there just to provide housing for family members, but also be home to countless memories, heirlooms and be part of your heritage as well.
In 4 generations time, 100 years, it should still be standing in your family property holdings, with family living in it.
Symbolism in the Sanctuary
Your sanctuary should have subtle symbolism that represents your family. If your family is at a level where it has an emblem that represents your family’s identity and belief structure, this should be over the door or on a wall on the inside of your sanctuary.
Notice I said the inside, I’ll emphasize this again. Put all distinctive marking and colors on the INSIDE of your sanctuary. You should not put anything on the gate, letterbox or fence, nor the outside walls, doors, no signs or invitations for strangers to take any notice of your sanctuary.
These distinctions create a stimulus that makes your house stand out. This something any self-respecting family does not want – attention from anyone but those that matter.
Also having a theme to match your family colors will create a sense of solidarity and cement memories in your family culture. Maybe not in the external paintwork, but perhaps in the furniture or in the main family room.
Wealth Transfer
Wealth Transfer comes in many forms, there are 4 types of capital for a family which should be focused on to be handed down. But the term ‘wealth transfer’ encompasses a few other things as well.
Creating this sanctuary not only builds upon a valuable piece of heirloom real estate for your family. It also allows wealth transfer in 2 other ways: Time Transfer and Early Life Transitional Transfer
Time Transfer
First, there’s time transfer. Everybody should pull their weight in a sanctuary, helping out in the chores and chipping in where their strengths shine.
Perhaps a son takes a shine to cooking and assumes the role of the house chef, and a daughter likes to garden, so takes over the role of head gardener.
This eases the time requirements of everybody living or staying at the sanctuary. Thus as a whole, the members are freer to devote their time to improving themselves, earning and creating more and spending more time with family.
That said if your family is of a high level of wealth then these chores may be outsourced. This is not a great tool to teach a lesson for young kids. I’ll leave it up to you to determine how to best handle that,hint: they should do chores. If your kids are older and contributing financially, then everybody collectively deciding to outsource the chores allows a lot of time to be freed up to pursue financial endeavors or personal development.
ELTT
The other form of wealth transfer is more financial in nature. Lacking a better name, I call this Early Life Transitional Transfer.
By having multi-generational living arrangements, you can ease the early-life costs many young adults face under average conditions.
Instead of moving out and paying high rent, taking the brunt of chores solo and living with people that they don’t necessarily care for, or that care for them, adult children are able to stay in the sanctuary. This does not have to be a long term arrangement if it doesn’t suit the individuals in a family.
There are no free rides in a generation wealth family – there is still board/rent to pay.
The rent of in-home adult children should be greatly less than what it would cost to live alone.
This also means wealth is kept within the family, instead of leaving it. There’s an incentive to go and earn or create wealth external to the family, and this board goes either to the parents or into the family coffers.
Paying Your Way in the Family Sanctuary
It’s worth saying here that creating this sanctuary isn’t a refuge from the costs of living anywhere but on the street or in the wilderness. There should always be a cost involved with having a roof over your head.
Once you’ve got your sanctuary established even if you’re the primary owner. You should be setting aside what you think is fair each week and paying your family ‘the rent’. Say you had a 4 bedroom house set up as your sanctuary. The market rent for such a place may be $3,000 a month. So you then set aside $2400, 80% of the market rest, and tuck it into an account allocated to be ‘family money’.
For those late teen-adults living in each of the rooms, an amount should be paid and put into the family coffers, and less is contributed in by the primary owners. The result is a net flow into the family financial capital, rather than out. This is an aspect of The Collective Method of building generational wealth. There are 3 methods which I suggest you read about and consider for your dynasty.
Why Pay in a Family Sanctuary?
This keeps you motivated to earn and pay your way and makes it fair for anybody else staying at the sanctuary. If you are the primary owner and anybody else stays, then it’s your call whether this money goes to you, or you pay less and out their share into the family fund or just combine it.
Personally, I’d say pay their share into the fund as well as yours if you’re in the early stages of wealth building. In the later stages, once some family capital is established, you would pay less and just add their share in. But it’s all about establishing what is fair in your family culture.
Obligatory over the top example property to get you hype af.
When
The best time to set something like this up is when your oldest child is reaching adolescence if you are in a position where you can afford it.
Even if you can’t at this stage of your family’s development, you should be actively searching for a deal on a property. This will keep you in tune with the market so you can jump on one that suits you, even if you have to rent it out for a few years first.
Timing isn’t a hard rule. Setting your sanctuary up should be done at a time that matches your family.
Examples
I am hesitant to use an example. Most self-respecting families with a modicum of generational wealth tend to stay fairly silent. I’ve read snippets of families that own farms, others that have apartment complexes, some have chateaus and so on.
But putting a name to these, finding images and providing much information at all proves difficult.
In fact, the main examples I can find are families in the public eye, like the Rockefellers and to a lesser extent the Rothschild Dynasty.
These are so extravagant and so far removed due to the vast wealth that they may feel unattainable to individual folks, like you and me. A Family Sanctuary is what you make of what you can attain.
So I won’t be providing an example of a family sanctuary in this post.
But fear not, you don’t need to have 7 figures of capital to own a family sanctuary. From what I can find, at the time of writing, I found properties in decent areas of Florida for 400 thousand that would be suitable as Sanctuaries…with a lot of work(which you want to put in anyway, right?). This price range makes them easily attainable for any family that set their minds to it. They also offer a chance to fix them up over time and add value, increasing your families financial capital.
It may take 30, even 50 years for some, but these are definitely achievable goals, especially if you are using an approach like the collective to grow a pool of family funds.
If you have to, start with the worst house in the best area you can afford and put your time into improving the property. Be patient and do what you can. Even if you have to put an ad on craigslist to help somebody do some demo work of a kitchen to get their old one to fit it in your house in exchange for the labor. There’s always a way.
The Family Sanctuary
A sanctuary is a place of refuge for you and your family. When building generational wealth and strong family culture, it is an imperative pillar that will give your family unity, resonance, and refuge.
You should get a structure or place that suits your family’s ideals and matches the heritage you want to create, in a location your family has ties to and feels as though they belong.
Doing these things will provide a permanent sanctuary that will remain in your family
What structure would you have for your family sanctuary? Maybe you have one now or are planning on it? Do you have a succession plan? Let me know in the comments down below.
Thanks heaps for reading.
Yours,
Ben Black
