Uncle Charley puts down a deposit on a vacation lot at beautiful Whispering Pines, only to learn he's been hoodwinked in a high pressure real-estate operation. The family discover that it is located at the bottom of a steep canyon. It is next to a tumbledown shack, occupied by a slovenly family who prove themselves completely undesirable as prospective neighbours.

Robbie is crushed when he learns that Denise DuBois, a French exchange student that Robbie had hoped to marry, has accepted his friend Tom's proposal of marriage the night before.