Hello, friends and the cohousing-curious!

We are building an experimental cohousing community in the historic Harvard-Belmont district, near the heart of Seattle. At the core, we believe that living closely with people we love and admire is one of the best ways to create a happy, healthy, sustainable life.

Warmly, Brynn, Marley, Valerie, and Brian

P.S. Credit to Kristen and Phil Levin for articulating a similar vision for their Radish Oakland community. We’ve borrowed a lot of their language and recommend giving it a read.

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Why are we building a cohousing project?

Fostering Community

We are excited by the prospect of living with many friends! We love spending time with curious, kind, interesting people who expose us to new ideas and activities, who work hard towards common causes, who spread joy, and who bring out the best in us. We want to support those people, and be supported by them. And we recognize that physical proximity makes this more doable—the people that we run into in the hallway, eat alongside, or help tend a garden are probably the people that we’ll spend the most time with.

Modeling Alternative Paths

There’s a standard narrative about where we live and with whom:

  1. Grow up in a house with our nuclear family.
  2. Cohouse with peers for a couple years in college or young adulthood.
  3. Get an apartment solo or with a romantic partner.
  4. Buy a house to live in with a spouse and children.
  5. After kids leave the nest and we get too old to look after ourselves and a house, move into senior living facilities with professional care.

This path works for lots of people. But there are many other options! And some of those alternatives can be better for individuals, society, and the environment. We’ve extolled the social virtues of cohousing already, but here are some additional benefits of dense urban living: