Cohousing-L Mailing List: Would a cohousing/guest ranch make sense?

[Jeff Buscher (jbuscher]

I sent this yesterday, but I don't think it went out.  I didn't receive a
copy of it.
If this is your second one, I'm sorry.

Does anyone know of a cohousing community that operates a bed &
breakfast or guest ranch as part of the community?  Last weekend I went
to a family reunion at my uncle's guest ranch in Texas.  They basically
have a common house and 12 cabins.  In addition, they had a 24 stall
barn, bunkhouse that sleeps 20, swimming pool, hot tub, volleyball, a
smoke house, an RV park with 20 spots, and a pavilion big enough to seat
a group of about 100 people at picnic tables.

The ranch is very profitable.  Church groups have dinners there on
Sunday afternoons.  During the summer, they have several 3 day camps for
kids.  And they have family reunions on weekends.

My uncle and his family work pretty hard to host big groups, but it
seems like a cohousing community could spread that work between a lot
more people pretty easily.  I'm thinking of a group of houses on one
side of the common house for the full time residents with another set of
houses on the other side of the common house rented out to groups.  It
seems like the ranch could probably employ a quarter of the residents.

Has anyone done anything like this before?