AP Cohousing Story | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Zev Paiss (zpaiss![]() |
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Date: Mon, 6 Nov 2000 00:23:30 -0700 (MST) |
Dear Cohousers: Here's an Associated Press article about the Ten Stones Cohousing Community in Vermont that is scheduled to run on the national AP wire on Sunday, Nov. 5. It would be worth putting in on the cohousing-L list so people can look for it in their local paper. Since virtually every newspaper in the country gets AP, it's also an opportunity for cohousers to call their local newspaper, alert the news editor the story is coming and suggest that the paper may want to do a local tie-in with the cohousing community or group in town. If anyone sees the story in their local paper, I'd sure appreciate hearing about it. People can email me at neshama36 [at] earthlink.net. Thanks. -- Neshama Abraham Paiss ---------- From: Lisa Rathke <lrathke [at] ap.org> To: neshama36 [at] earthlink.net Subject: co-housing Date: Tue, Oct 24, 2000, 1:28 PM ^BC-VT--Cohousing Vermont,1335< ^Neighbors share land, garden and lives< ^By LISA RATHKE= ^Associated Press Writer= ^With With AP Photos< ¶ CHARLOTTE, Vt. (AP) _ Judy Rowe hunches over a row of dirt on a brisk Sunday before the hard frost. She plants bulb after bulb of garlic in the vast garden so the herb will flourish next summer. ¶ Rowe is known for the flowers and vegetables that grow in her own yard, but this plot is for all _ all the members of the Ten Stones Community. ¶ The 13 households share the elaborate garden, 88 acres of land as well as parts of their lives and a commitment to developing substantive relationships with their neighbors. That's why they live here. ¶ "It was just instant," Rowe, 68, says of her draw to Ten Stones seven years ago. "I was looking for a sense of community. I wanted to live with all ages of people. And what I really wanted was ... to be a steward of the land." ¶ She had recently retired as a gerontologist, and moved back to Vermont from Connecticut. Ten Stones was the answer. ¶ "The community as a whole looks out for each other," she says. ¶ Ten Stones combines the +co+-+housing+ concept that started in Denmark, where houses are built around a village-like common space and a common house, with the idea of an intentional community, such as Findhorn in Scotland, where residents chose to live in an environment they say supports their personal growth on emotional, social and spiritual levels. ¶ The people are not linked by any religious or philosophical belief, just a desire to live more economically, ecologically and cooperatively. ¶ That desire has taken off around the country. The number of +co+-+housing+ developments has doubled in the past two years to 45, and a total of 150 are being planned in 37 states, according to the Cohousing Network, based in Boulder, Colo., and Berkeley, Calif. ¶ "Over the last 10 years the cohousing movement in the United States has grown exponentially," Zev Paiss writes on the Network's Web page. ¶ And in Vermont, others are cropping up. A small group in Chittenden County called Northern Vermont Cohousing has 46 acres in South Burlington and is looking for others to join. The group plans to develop as many as 50 units of cohousing in two clusters. ¶ Another group, dedicated to alternative energy and ecological living, has started building on 230 acres in Hartland. ¶ "It is one of the few positive examples of how individuals and families can band together to create communities that foster cooperation, and a deeper reverence for the earth," Paiss says. ¶ At Ten Stones, the 13 homes sit on half-acre lots around a large green _ the heart of the community, where children play, spontaneous baseball games come alive in the summer, and members gather in warm weather for barbecues or pizza baked in an outdoor wood oven. ¶ From the outside, it's like any other close neighborhood except for the distinctive architecture, the vegetable farm that yields produce for the members and eight other families who pay for weekly produce, and the acres and acres of field and woods, with trails for walks and cross country skiing. ¶ What's different is it's more intentional, says Edorah Frazer, a spokeswoman for the group. People chose to live here and among each other. They designed their homes with energy efficient standards in mind, they support each other and their children, and work together in the garden. ¶ When they build a common house on the green, they'll have a place to share a meals if they want. They'll have a room for community activities, as well as a greenhouse and a root cellar, Frazer says. ¶ A relative newcomer, who moved in three years ago, Frazer has long been interested in intentional communities and is excited to talk about this one. She relishes the relationships she's developed with young and old. ¶ "I'm very happy to be involved with the lives of many of the children here and the elders, too," she says. "We have two three-generation families here." ¶ When her neighbor gave birth, Frazer and her husband took care of the neighbor's other child for the night. Other days, Frazer helps out by putting them to bed. ¶ "A lot of our focus so far has been on child rearing. That's a great benefit to living in this community," she said. ¶ Frazer and her husband, both graduate students, longed to be part of a community. They wanted to have the benefits of rural life _ solitude and closeness to the land _ while developing nurturing relationships with the people around them. ¶ Many years later they found it. They moved from New Hampshire to live at Ten Stones. They had tried to form +co+-+housing+ projects in Seattle and in New Hampshire where their jobs as a teacher and physical therapist had taken them, but neither project got off the ground. Money, she says, was often the problem. It takes a financial plunge and a fierce commitment to start a community like Ten Stones, she says. ¶ When they learned about the community in +Charlotte+, just five houses stood on the 88 acres, and the members were carrying a heavy debt on the land, she says. ¶ Frazer and her husband bought their half-acre lot, which cost an average $55,000, and designed and built their straw bale house, with help from the architect living next door. The design is inspired by Rowe's single person dwelling across the green. ¶ Each of the 13 homes has its own style _ the Adobe look of straw bales covered in stucco sit alongside more traditional dwellings that blend into the surroundings with their green roofs and subtle colors. A wetland built on the land filters the wastewater. ¶ Ten Stones started on paper as a graduate school project for Ted Montgomery, who later became an architect and a founding member. He has built a sprawling house at the edge of the woods with plants sprouting from planters on one angle of its roof. ¶ Frazer says at Ten Stones there's less of a chance that people won't get along. And that's the point. ¶ "In a subdivision you don't go around and meet everyone before they move in. It's not that intentional. You go there, you hope you like the people...," she says. ¶ "Here, we came here. There was a process by which we met each other. We consciously chose to. If you're lucky, in a subdivision it happens naturally. If you're lucky, but there's certainly no guarantee. Here there's no guarantee either but the likelihood is much higher." ¶ Unlike other new housing developments where people move in and out, people here plan to stay. "I hope to stay forever," Frazer says. ¶ Some wish the community were larger. They're working with the town, which had to modify its zoning laws to allow the houses to be built closer together, because they could sell three more lots. ¶ And the lots are in demand. Ten Stones keeps a waiting list. ¶ One family that has its eyes on a lot is renting a house from a Ten Stones family that is spending the year in Europe. ¶ They regretted leaving their home on Lake Champlain in Colchester this fall says Joan White-Hensen, but it took just a few weeks before she was ready to sell the house and never go back. ¶ Her Danish husband had a hand in the start of Ten Stones and she realized the neighborhood was not only ideal for her two sons, ages 2 and 4, but valuable for her as well. ¶ The spontaneous interactions at the playground, in the garden, in the driveway, and visits from kids after school were something she had missed in the lakeside community that became deserted in the winter. ¶ "I just feel that it nurtures my desires to be part of a bigger piece," she says. ¶ For Rowe, the intimacy took some getting used to. She had to give up her tendency to keep things to herself. ¶ "If something's happening in your life, you let people know about it. That's the thing about the intentional community that was hardest for me," she says. ¶ "But when you really put it out there, and you're supported, it really is amazing." ¶ __ ¶ On the Net: http://www.cohousing.org
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