The Best of Both Worlds

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Originally a Danish creation, cohousing struggled to gain popularity in its country of origin for years. That is, until a film was made that explained its merits and how people found it enhanced their lives. Now a new film by award-winning filmmaker John de Graaf (AFFLUENZA, REDEFINING PROSPERITY) promises to have the same effect on U.S. audiences.

THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS explores the concept of cohousing as expressed through first-hand observations of residents of four cohousing communities — including the first one in the United States--and observations by architect Charles Durrett, who brought the concept to the US from Denmark.

'An inspiring overview of an important housing trend that offers a new way of living for the future. This short video provides great material for class discussions about how to rethink community and live more sustainably.' Stephen Wheeler, Professor of Human Ecology, University of California-Davis, Author, Radical Questions about Sustainable Communities (forthcoming)

'So timely. A beautifully done film - Sign me up! Cohousing promises to help alleviate many of our most vexing contemporary social problems, such as isolation, loneliness, alienation from nature, and consumerism run amok. Seeing how well cohousing works for several California communities left me eager to learn more, especially how cohousing might be adapted to other geographic regions and to areas of existing housing stock.' Carol Medlicott, Associate Professor of History and Geography, Northern Kentucky University, Editor, Communal Societies

'A valuable addition to any sociology, urban planning, and community engaged curriculum...Viewers are reminded that intergenerational communities with private homes and shared public spaces can be both environmentally responsible and economically resourceful...This film is an excellent resource for anyone who would like to learn more.' Melinda Messineo, Professor of Sociology, Faculty Fellow for Inclusive Excellence and Community Engagement, Ball State University

'Co-housing is likely a big part of our future, much bigger than we might think. With its kids-and-seniors-friendly and environmental benefits, it certainly should be...Watch this lovely, revealing and inspirational film. Highly recommended!' Gus Speth, former Dean, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, Author, America the Possible: Manifesto for a New Economy

'Co-housing is the best of all worlds - good for the planet, our economy, our security, and most importantly, our happiness.' Annie Leonard, Executive Director, Greenpeace US, Author, The Story of Stuff

'The Best of Both Worlds, Cohousing's Promise shows what I've been lecturing about all over the world (in 82 countries) as human's natural state. The nuclear family does not work great in any country. Our natural state is tribal, as so exquisitely shown in the movie...I have been pushing for communal living for 50 years, to address climate change, economic disparity, and mental health issues. With the film, everything has been made easier. What a great way to transition into tribal life.' Patch Adams, Physician, Activist, Author and Founder of The Gesundheit! Institute

'A charming and inspiring film that shows how people are recovering community in our time.' Lance Bennett, Director, Center for Communication and Civic Engagement, University of Washington

'If you wish you knew your neighbors, if you like the prefix 'eco,' if you could use a few more hugs, if you think downsizing sounds good and wonder why the Danes are so darn content, you'll enjoy watching this John de Graaf film. It explains an alternative way of living that is social, economic, sustainable and, frankly, radical.' Rick Steves, PBS and NPR host of Travels With Rick Steves

'Cohousing offers compelling answers to so many of our ongoing crises: ecological, social, and spiritual. It seems certain this movement will keep growing - but faster now, because anyone who watches this movie will find themselves wondering, 'why not me?'' Bill McKibben, Educator, Environmentalist, Author, Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future

'Our nation is faced with urgent housing needs and more and more residents look for innovations in the housing market that combine affordability and comfort. This informative, fast-paced film convinced me that cohousing is one of those solutions...I am now promoting cohousing here in the city of Vallejo as an alternative to larger developments.' Bob Sampayan, Mayor of Vallejo, California

'The benefits of intentional community are beautifully illuminated in this short film on cohousing. The film is well suited for classroom use in disciplines such as sociology, family studies, urban design, and gerontology. I highly recommend it!' Deborah Altus, Professor and Chair, Family and Human Services, Washburn University

'A wonderful testimony to the benefits of co-housing, this film captures the essence of intentional community life. Families and individuals own their own homes but share common facilities...Through meals in common kitchens, shared work in tool shops and gardens, socializing in common spaces, neighbors get to know, care about, and support each other.' Christine Cousineau, Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, Tufts University

'It is time to revisit the intentions underlying how we design and build neighborhoods, and their implications for sustainability and social wellbeing...Cohousing, a 40-year old Danish model for collaborative housing, is now being recognized as the one that can offer 'the best of both worlds' to an America that increasingly is diverse, fosters entrepreneurship, participates in a shared economy, and struggles to find the right balance between privacy and community.' Maruja Torres-Antonini, Associate Visiting Professor of Interior Architecture, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

'This inspiring movie makes so compelling a case for co-housing's role in addressing many sustainability problems that one is left wondering when and why co-housing became fringe and why can't we change that.' Laszlo Pinter, Director, School of Environmental Sciences and Policy, Central European University

'Cohousing is a very seductive idea; and this film adds real life dimensions to this seduction...The Best of Both Worlds is both a warm and strong recommendation for cohousing and an excellent medium or tool to elicit discussions about our lifestyles and wellbeing.' Philip Vergragt, Senior Research Scientist, George Perkins Marsh Institute, Clark University, Associate Fellow, Tellus Institute

'Compelling...Illustrates how thoughtful design, consensus decision-making, and shared spaces, amenities, and experiences build communities of mutual support while reducing costs to the residents and to the planet. This riveting film is realistic about the challenges, but makes a compelling case that co-housing can provide the best of all worlds - private and public, current and future.' Jim Diers, Founding Director, Seattle's Department of Neighborhoods, Lecturer, University of Washington, Author, Neighbor Power: Building Community the Seattle Way

'Utopian in the best sense of the word, co-housing offers a creative way to help communities consume less, connect more, and reap the benefits of sharing.' Aaron Shkuda, Project Manager, Princeton-Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities, Princeton University

'The Best of Both Worlds is a clear and concise overview that draws on perspectives and experiences of residents...By allowing people to say what they love about co-housing, while also addressing its challenges, we see reasons so many people come to spend their lives in such close and caring communities. It is perfect for community discussions and classes that focus on urban planning, social relations, and models for cooperative living in a world that needs far more of such opportunities.' James Loucky, Professor of Anthropology, Western Washington University

'I recommend to anyone who is looking for a sense of community or living lighter on the planet while enhancing your life to view this film to get inspired and to become a part of creating a community for yourself.' Alan Carpenter, Founder and Director, Canadian Cohousing Network

'Cohousing architects Chuck Durrett and Katie McCamant pioneered ways for neighborhoods to form by residents who balance individual interests with those of the whole; inclusive acceptance of all community members; and living more gently on the earth.' Alan O'Hashi, President, Cohousing Association of the U.S.

'I strongly recommend The Best of Both Worlds to any viewer, but especially those interested in more sensible, less stressful ways of living...This documentary will leave the viewer wanting to tour the nearest cohousing neighborhood, and hopefully, build their own.' Dave Wann, Editor, Reinventing Community, Co-Author, Superbia, Producer, Designing a Great Neighborhood

'[An] on-target film...if you're looking into cohousing yourself, The Best of Both Worlds is a great resource to aid in your search.' Joan Oleck, Journalist, Village Hill Cohousing, Northampton, Massachusetts

'I taught a course called Economy, Technology, and Sustainability at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute...This film convinces me that other kinds of structural innovations, such as cohousing, that facilitate changes in lifestyles and community decision-making, are at least as important as technological ones.' Faye Duchin, Professor Emeritus of Economics, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

'This film provides a solid introduction for beginning community planning and development students or a first step for groups exploring co-housing as an option in their own community.' Lauren Heberle, Associate Professor of Sociology, Director, Center for Environmental Policy and Management, University of Louisville

'This exploration of cohousing makes you feel hopeful that there is a way to live that is good for you and for the planet...This short but mesmerizing film helps us believe that we can make a difference - that we can change and develop happier, healthier ways of living.' Cecile Andrews, Author, The Circle of Simplicity, Slow is Beautiful, Less is More, Living Room Revolution: A Handbook for Conversation, Community, Sharing, and Happiness

'This powerful, gentle, yet compelling film offers the beauty of cohousing communities and reminds us of how we can all live better on less...Cohousing's village approach - with smaller individual home sizes and larger common spaces, areas and rituals - has never made more sense than today.' Wanda Urbanska, host/producer, Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska, Author, Builders of Hope: A Social Entrepreneur's Solution for Rebuilding America

'This is a vivid, pragmatic look at one of the most promising solutions to many of our nation's most wicked problems - loneliness and economic anxiety. Cohousing is the opposite of precarity; it is abundance, as so beautifully captured in this film.' Courtney E. Martin, Author, The New Better Off: Reinventing the American Dream

'May this film inspire planners, politicians, homeowners, economists and dreamers to make the next house, the next subdivision, the next remodel into structures where 'better living through intelligent sharing' is a way of life.' Vicki Robin, Author, Your Money Or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence

'The Best of Both Worlds brings this inspiring, fast-growing movement to vivid life in the form of a close look at several American co-housing experiments - veteran and new -full of babies and elders and everyone in between.' William Powers, Fellow, World Policy Institute, Author, Dispatches from the Sweet Life: One Family, Five Acres, and a Community's Quest to Reinvent the World

'This film is wonderful - a great, enticing, complete overview introduction for people who will be excited to learn more. Well done, lovely, luminous!' Mark Lakeman, Co-founder, City Repair

'Well-made, informative...inspiring. Having lived myself in somewhat similar communities, and watched others growing, both in Sweden and the US, I know how much effort is also required and the documentary doesn't skip over the challenges. One comes away with a feeling of genuine possibility, because the story is so genuine.' Alan AtKisson, Co-founder, Sustainable Seattle, former Director, Redefining Progress

Citation

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Main credits

De Graaf, John (screenwriter)
De Graaf, John (film director)
O'Ryan, Jackie (narrator)
Durrett, Charles (on-screen participant)

Other credits

Photograher, Doug Stanley; editor, Greg Davis; music, Michael Bade, Pond5.

MARC Record See Worldcat record

Keywords

cohousing, privacy, community, common facilities, swimming pool, guest rooms, communal meals, serving on committees, mutual support, garden, Nevada City, Charles Durrett, Danish invention, Kate McCammant, safe environment for kids, Wolf Creek, Grass Valley, Truckee, condominium, Fair Oaks, Sacramento, cars on the boundaries, Bill McKibben; "The Best of Both Worlds"; Bullfrog Films,doc,art; shod

[00:00:00.00] (OMINOUS PERCUSSIVE MUSIC)
[00:00:06.29] - In America, we've gotten really good at designing community out of the picture. It's important that we get people back into a village-like setting where they know each other. They care about each other. And they support each other.
[00:00:22.04] - I spent most of my time working. I didn't know my neighbors very well. And I did a lot of research online and came across cohousing.
[00:00:29.18] - This is, hopefully, the America of the future.
[00:00:32.86] - We all really trust each other. We know we're working together.
[00:00:35.75] - I can have my privacy here. But there's community right outside my door. I mean, it's the best of both worlds.
[00:00:49.93] - It's a simple concept, a living arrangement offering both privacy and community.
[00:00:58.77] - Riding the horsey.
[00:00:59.73] - It's called cohousing, and here's how it works. In cohousing villages, families or individuals own their own homes or apartments but share common facilities, tools, amenities, including rooms for out-of-town guests, and about five meals each week. Cars are kept out of the central area of the community providing a safe place for children. Residents contribute a bit of work to the upkeep of the community. Decisions are made by consensus.
[00:01:43.35] - Fundamental to cohousing is not only having dinner together on occasion but, most importantly, that the future residents, or at least a good portion of them, are very involved in the design of the project.
[00:01:55.47] - Today, there are more than 150 cohousing communities in the United States. And many new ones are on the way.
[00:02:04.15] (PLAYFUL STRING MUSIC)
[00:02:12.12] For one architect in the tiny gold rush town of Nevada City, California, it's the realization of a dream.
[00:02:20.35] - And this one is the common house for the Chilliwack cohousing. And it's a part of an ecovillage.
[00:02:25.53] - Charles Durrett's office is filled with evidence of more than three decades designing cohousing.
[00:02:31.68] - As many houses as possible were designed to look at the bicycle storage so that the neighbors could say that, oh, "Margaret's going for a bike ride, and I haven't talked to her for a long time." They're going to go have coffee somewhere. "And if Jane can do it, I can do it." So people are just very silly in the creation of the design criteria so that once they live there, they don't have to think about it. It's just a natural extension of their day-to-day living.
[00:02:57.48] In the US today, there are two unfortunate concurrent trends. Trend number one is houses are continuing to get bigger and bigger. On the other side of the equation, there's more and more homeless people.
[00:03:09.66] - Sprawling suburbs mean long commutes, increasing isolation, and a staggering consumption of fossil fuels. Durrett remembers the words of a Native American friend.
[00:03:21.34] - He said, "You white people, you build all over hell and high water, and you don't seem to have any concept of the village."
[00:03:28.20] - But Durrett did. He grew up in Sacramento, and here, in the tiny village of Downieville, California.
[00:03:35.85] - The village felt like people knew each other, cared about each other, and supported each other at some basic level.
[00:03:44.07] - He found that feeling again in the middle of a foreign city. In the early 1980s, Durrett studied architecture at the University of Copenhagen. Most Danish neighborhoods weren't that different from those back home with one exception.
[00:04:02.77] - Day in and day out on my walk to the train station, I noticed that there was this neighborhood where there was a lot of life between the buildings. And I would see kids running, people sitting at a picnic table having a cup of tea, people standing on the sidewalk in this little development where they were talking to each other.
[00:04:22.15] - People coming and going from a building where nobody lived but apparently everyone lived.
[00:04:28.49] - One day I stopped and asked a resident in my broken Danish, what's going on here? And she answered to me in her perfect English.
[00:04:40.09] - She said it was a type of planned co-operative community, unique to Denmark.
[00:04:45.27] - Cohousing was making their life more economical, more practical, more convenient, more interesting, more fun, more healthy.
[00:04:58.69] - Durrett was hooked. When he and his former wife, fellow architect Kate McCamant, returned to America, they promoted the idea with a crusader zeal.
[00:05:09.54] - When her book came out in July 1988, we didn't know where we would get the concept rolling in the US. And it was about two months later that we did a public presentation in Davis. A hundred people came. And that project filled up from day one, and they've been there since 1991.
[00:05:27.24] (LIVELY GUITAR PLAYING)
[00:05:35.09] - Lush and shaded, where summer temperatures often exceed 100 degrees, Muir Commons in Davis, California, looks different now than it did when scientist Laurie Friedman and other residents moved here as cohousing's American pioneers.
[00:05:53.03] - We were the first in the country to build from scratch and move in. And we had the first 15 minutes of fame. It was kind of fun.
[00:06:00.64] - But it wasn't easy at first.
[00:06:03.19] - The banks hated us. They didn't know what to make of us. We had developers who got it, and they really facilitated this happening.
[00:06:11.08] - And it was also challenging being the first cohousing community.
[00:06:15.43] - We had probably three meetings a week for two years. We didn't have a model to go on. We just had to kind of invent it.
[00:06:26.24] - Based on their agreements, residents now share an exercise room, a small garden, and a common house with a kitchen, dining room, and meeting rooms. Solar panels adorn the roof. In environmentally conscious Davis, bikes are the most popular form of transportation. With her husband Ray Frank, Jane McKendry makes music in her spare time. Jane was one of the original residents here. Now retired, she also enjoys working in the cohousing orchard and tending the chickens.
[00:07:08.58] - I have my extrovert moments, but I consider myself more basically an introvert. And about half of us here are. And it works perfectly for us because we don't have to get on the phone and say, "Do you want a coffee date?" And it just feels much better than sitting at home all the time.
[00:07:27.36] - I'm allergic to lilacs and rosemary!
[00:07:31.83] - But on weekdays it's quiet here, with children at school and parents at work. And there aren't as many children anymore.
[00:07:40.41] - When I moved in, we had a couple other teenagers and a lot of little kids. It tended to be young families who bought in because they could tell at a glance, "Oh, this is where I want my kids to grow up." But then they never moved out. The turnover here is so low that we don't get a lot of new kids coming in.
[00:08:02.02] - But those who do find a welcoming and safe environment different from most American neighborhoods.
[00:08:07.72] - From the age of 2, they basically know where the boundaries are, where they can go and where they can't. And where they can go is in anybody's house. They knock on the door. Sometimes they don't. They walk on in.
[00:08:18.85] - Jane remembers a five-year-old neighbor who surprised Ray one day.
[00:08:22.59] - She knocked on the door, came in the house, said to Ray, "Where's Jane?" He said, "Well, she's at work." "Are you guys married?" "Well, no." "Are you going to get married?" "Well, yeah, that's the plan." And she kind of poked him with her elbow and said, "When you get married, you can have sex every day."
[00:08:46.28] - Rhonda David raised three children here, two of them adopted.
[00:08:50.96] - And they had a lot of guardian angels, so they felt special.
[00:08:54.59] - When one of them ran away, she didn't go far.
[00:08:58.19] - She ran away across the sidewalk and stayed there for a week. I could look out the window and see her. But she ran away to Fred and Andrea's. And they took her in. That was just what is.
[00:09:21.56] - Getting better by the minute. 15 minutes, we'll start putting the plates on the table. New potatoes in the store? Probably the most important aspect of cohousing is the common dinner.
[00:09:37.71] (INTERPOSING VOICES)
[00:09:40.24] - Vegetables instead of pasta.
[00:09:42.63] - It's not just sustenance. It's also, "What are you doing this weekend?" "I'm thinking about going cross-country skiing." "I'm going to take a couple of kids to the zoo. Can I take your kids as well?"
[00:09:57.21] - Charles Durrett lives here, in a cohousing community in Nevada City.
[00:10:02.93] - Well, Nevada City Cohousing is 34 units on 3 acres in a small town of 3,000 people.
[00:10:09.67] - It looks beautiful now, but the land had been denuded more than a century earlier by a process called hydraulic gold mining. With Durrett in the lead, the residents discussed the design of the community and the amenities they wanted, including this wood shop.
[00:10:33.26] - Well, I was worried when I moved because I had my own workshop. I had my own wood shop. And as it turned out, this is actually a nicer shop than I had in my garage. And now I can do projects for other people too, so that worked out fine too.
[00:10:45.82] - Basic cohousing math is 1 plus 1 equals 3. I have an idea. You have an idea. And together, we come up with a third idea. That's just the better way to go.
[00:10:55.10] - When you tell people, "Oh yeah, we make all the decisions by consensus." They think, "Oh, well, that must not work." And it actually really does work.
[00:11:04.55] - The process continues in committee meetings and work projects.
[00:11:08.57] - I think that'll be pretty much accessible the whole time.
[00:11:12.01] - That would be really handy if they could do that.
[00:11:15.56] - Each resident must cook one common meal a month, contribute to community maintenance, and serve on a major committee.
[00:11:23.24] - No one's going to be knocking on your door saying, "Hey, you haven't come to the committee meeting."
[00:11:27.83] - If someone has the desire, drive to do something, they just start it. And the rest of the people that want to join in can.
[00:11:35.62] (PAN PIPE MUSIC)
[00:11:48.91] - There's my favorite hoe.
[00:11:53.95] - Tony Finnerty's passion is the garden. It didn't always look like this.
[00:11:58.99] - When we bought the property to build on, which was 15 years ago, this was a dense, 150 years growth of manzanita. And there was just no way you could even move through it. It would rip the shirt off your back.
[00:12:12.80] - The garden covers half an acre. Most cohousing communities have one.
[00:12:18.37] - Our intention is to grow lettuces and salad greens all year round. Our main purpose is to supply our common meals with food and then any excesses for individual family use. What I really like is being up here working and then someone just random from the community comes through the gate to get some kale for that night's dinner. When people have visitors, they bring them here to show them the garden.
[00:12:45.23] - My feet are on the soil. My hands get in the soil. That is a very nourishing, personal process.
[00:12:52.72] - The kids will come up here all on their own-- little guys, little girls. They love grazing the strawberries over there. So this is a pretty steep slope that we're gardening on here.
[00:13:03.58] - In the winter when it snows here, children use it for sledding.
[00:13:09.52] - And the kids loved us for that. And, of course, we love our kids. And it's a very kid-oriented community. We set it up so that houses were separated from the cars, cars separated from the houses, so that the kids can run around and the parents don't have to worry about their safety.
[00:13:27.04] - That means a lot to Margaret and Stewart Matthews and their two young children.
[00:13:31.42] - Well, it's definitely a village. And there are lots of other people that want to play with our kids and other kids to play with the kids. We have probably 10 different people we can potentially ask for care of our children if we needed to. It's so lovely to see the loving bonds between our kids and the other adults.
[00:13:58.82] - Maybe "hugs" is close enough. You probably do it with your mom a lot.
[00:14:03.46] - Cuddle?
[00:14:04.45] - Yeah!
[00:14:06.43] - Adults and children find many ways to enjoy each other's company. Sometimes it's an impromptu game, like this one.
[00:14:13.27] - You lose all of your points and all of your turns and you're out.
[00:14:16.30] - And you start back.
[00:14:18.40] - Oh, it went down, and then it rolled--
[00:14:20.23] - I see the kids that have grown up in cohousing becoming adults, and the kinds of adults that they become where they're just more socially aware. They're able to talk to a lot of different people.
[00:14:40.31] - The Matthews knew this would be a good place to raise their kids. But they were pleasantly surprised by other benefits of cohousing.
[00:14:49.15] - One of the biggest ways we save money is just because of the thoughts that have been put into sustainability. So there's solar throughout the whole community, and our electric bill averages about $10 a month. We've got one lawn mower for 34 houses, and we can share one pool for 34 houses. So all those things definitely add up.
[00:15:10.17] - I've questioned about 200 people, surveyed about 200 people. How much money did you save per month living in cohousing? And the number runs between $200 and $2,400 per month.
[00:15:22.63] - That makes it more affordable for single parents like Ingrid Holman, who grew up in Germany.
[00:15:30.57] - I feel this is a little more feels like a Europe-- nice, healthy, good environment for my son.
[00:15:36.04] - Who is a talented young man.
[00:15:37.81] (PIANO PLAYING)
[00:15:44.41] - I like going to the pool a lot with my friends. I like the common house, having common meals because I like the community here because it's not like everyone's in separate houses doing their own thing.
[00:16:00.23] - Ingrid found this community in a surprising way. One day she saw an elderly man hitchhiking in the next-door town of Grass Valley.
[00:16:08.72] - And I gave him a ride. And he said, "I live in cohousing." And I said, "Really? You live in cohousing? What is cohousing?" So I brought him home. He lives here. He's my neighbor now. And he gave me a tour of cohousing, and I really liked the place. And I found out there was an apartment for rent, and a couple of months later we moved in here because of him.
[00:16:32.59] Her neighbor is Robert Zeuner. He and his partner Bruce have taken their own tour of the community. They chose it over eight others they visited.
[00:16:42.58] - For a lot of us on the tour, they took us around, showed us what the buildings were like, what the gardens were like, what people did here. And we were very impressed.
[00:16:52.18] - But for Robert, cohousing took a bit of getting used to. As a former criminal defense lawyer, he was used to giving advice to clients. That wasn't the case in cohousing.
[00:17:03.37] - Here I come, and I give a piece of advice, and people yawn. I never came across that before. I had to learn to live with that type of situation where my opinion was just another opinion. It wasn't gospel.
[00:17:20.77] - Soon after she moved in, Nancy Newman's husband passed away.
[00:17:25.63] - I was very depressed after my husband died. And I was telling one of the women here. And she just volunteered, without my saying anything, said, "Well, do you want me to call you every morning to make sure you can get out of bed and get started?" And I said, "Yeah, that would be wonderful." So she did that for two or three months. It's just a natural thing-- borrow a cup of sugar, hug somebody when they have some kind of upset in their life. It's just part and parcel of everything that happens here.
[00:17:59.15] - According to Psychology Today, about 40% of seniors in America are, in fact, very lonely. I mean, it basically takes the air out of your sails and doesn't make you very interested in living.
[00:18:12.82] (APPLAUSE)
[00:18:15.68] - That doesn't seem to be a problem at Wolf Creek Lodge, a senior cohousing community in Grass Valley where a French game called pétanque brings residents together. Cohousing means a more active life for most.
[00:18:32.54] - This morning, I walked to the gym and I did my weightlifting class. And then I walked to the farmer's market, and then I walked back with the food I'm going to need for cooking common meal on Thursday. Physical stuff is just integrated or can be integrated into your life. We have our physical challenges, and mostly we take turns with them. We help each other.
[00:18:59.22] - I was planning on retiring in 2008 when I discovered that they were going to build this Wolf Creek Lodge senior cohousing. And I did not want to be maintaining a single-family house by myself and getting up to have coffee by myself. I thought, "This is perfect."
[00:19:19.29] - Jacque Bromm joined the team in 2007. The project started in 2008. But then, the economy crashed.
[00:19:27.15] - The bank was hesitant to give us a loan. But we hung in there for two years paying the interest on the land loan. And when the economy started to pick up again, the bank said, "You guys, we're going to go ahead." I travel a lot, so there's always somebody that's going to be watering my plants when I'm gone.
[00:19:49.05] - Jacque's home is small but efficient with a living room, kitchen, and two bedrooms.
[00:19:54.39] - Well it's almost 1,000 square feet. It's easy to clean.
[00:20:00.12] - She used to live in a 3,000 square foot home.
[00:20:03.42] - Downsizing was very liberating. I don't think we need those big houses. You have to take into consideration, we have almost 4,000 square feet of common space with a gourmet kitchen, with a laundry room. I don't need laundry facilities here. Actually, it's one of my favorite community rooms. It's state-of-the-art washing machines and dryers.
[00:20:30.78] - Other residences here range from 700 to 1,200 square feet.
[00:20:35.37] - We're one lodge, one building. It's three stories.
[00:20:39.21] - Jacque's neighbor, Casey Travis, was once an events planner. Now, in retirement, she enjoys her true passion-- art.
[00:20:48.30] - And in fact, I just started a group for people to get together once a month in our common room and work on artistic projects. There's a lot of people here who really understand and appreciate art, so I don't feel left out as an artist. Whatever you have to contribute, you can help out.
[00:21:09.66] - Wolf Creek residents are also eager to give back to the larger community they call home. For Bob Branstrom, that means helping build a trail along the nearby stream-- 200 long steps down from the lodge.
[00:21:24.77] - We can come down here any time of day and just enjoy the sounds of the creek. We are currently working with the city to build this trail through our property and the city's property that will be open to the public. It will give public health access to a beautiful area almost in downtown Grass Valley. And it's a stunning place to come to, and we're delighted that the community will be able to enjoy that.
[00:21:51.52] (GENTLE GUITAR MUSIC)
[00:22:07.12] - The path toward a cohousing community can sometimes be rocky. Patience helps.
[00:22:13.72] - Truckee, California. Time to make a little cohousing. We have a gentle north slope, and so we're looking at making one building solution because it's Truckee, and we have so much snow.
[00:22:26.85] - Pine Cone Road extends out that way.
[00:22:31.25] - It's not always easy to agree on a site. Some folks love this one in Truckee, California, but others did not.
[00:22:39.10] - It's really important that we don't fool ourselves. It's not sunny. I mean, it isn't. And I don't think there's anything we can do to make it sunny.
[00:22:47.17] - I've found that a high-functioning cohousing group can solve all problems.
[00:22:51.52] - Planning meetings can be long for those who aren't used to them.
[00:22:54.76] - Because once you have land, you have a timeline, and everything flips into high gear.
[00:22:59.29] - And in communities where cohousing is a new idea, banks can be suspicious about loans, and agencies wary of granting permits.
[00:23:07.57] - We're kind of priced out right now, to be honest.
[00:23:10.78] - Cohousing, by definition, is more or less accomplished like a condominium project in the US, in that there's a body of people who become a limited liability corporation. They fund the consultants that are involved, they fund buying the piece of property, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:23:34.15] - The number of projects continues to expand, and demand for new homes is high. Here at Fair Oaks Ecohousing in suburban Sacramento, nearly all the units have been sold before construction is complete.
[00:23:49.09] - I moved from the Bay Area. I lived there 20 years and decided I didn't know my neighbors, and I got kind of tired of that. So I met a wonderful group of people I'm going to live with and have meals with and have a community with. So we're already planning our life together. It's really kind of fun. And we gel very well.
[00:24:07.87] - We moved in with 37 kids. And it was just so beautiful to see, all of a sudden, free range kids.
[00:24:13.78] - For one young couple, it feels like the start of a new life. They'll move here with their two children and Rachel's mother.
[00:24:21.52] - So I work at the Waldorf School around the corner. I'm a high school teacher. And I was riding my bike past the site, before construction had begun, and I saw that there was something called ecohousing going up. And I thought, OK.
[00:24:36.64] - We have so many people we can rely on to look into things that wouldn't even occur to me, and we're not even living here yet.
[00:24:47.56] (UPBEAT MUSIC)
[00:25:22.37] - As interest in cohousing communities continues to grow, many other architects are now designing them as well. Things have come a long way since Charles Durrett got back from Copenhagen.
[00:25:39.44] When environmental writer Bill McKibben wrote a foreword to one of Durrett's cohousing books, he sent a surprising note.
[00:25:47.62] "Chuck, I'm not excited about how much energy you save. What I'm really excited about whenever I walk onto a cohousing community is how much energy you create."
[00:25:57.17] (GENTLE GUITAR MUSIC)