You may have missed it, but National Cohousing Open House Week just ended, during which many cohousing communities invited curious neighbors to check out their cooperative lifestyle. According to the Cohousing Association of the United States, only nine of its 345 member communities are located in New York State, and of those, a full four are in Ithaca. But one of the movement’s longest-running successes is found right here in Ulster County: Cantine’s Island Cohousing in Saugerties, whose first residents moved into their homes in 1997. HV1 paid a visit during last Friday’s Open House gathering and got to chat with several members, including a few of the founders.
First, what is cohousing? Wikipedia defines it as “an intentional, self-governing, cooperative community where residents live in private homes often clustered around shared space,” whose modern model evolved in Scandinavia in the mid-20th century. It’s not quite the same thing as the hippie communes of the 1960s and ‘70s, very few of which have survived into the present. Like monasteries, kibbutzim and college dorms, communes are classified more as “co-living” situations, in which sleeping quarters are the only private, unshared spaces. Cohousing also differs from cooperative apartment buildings, where members share the maintenance costs of certain common areas such as laundry rooms and backyards, in that co-ops are basically business arrangements with no intentional mission to encourage social interaction.
The idea behind cohousing is essentially to bring together like-minded people to create the sort of old-fashioned supportive village environment that no longer exists in most of the suburbanized, post-industrial world. Typically, cohousing communities have 50 or fewer residents, living in modest, privately owned homes built around a central common area, where members can gather socially, to play or to work on collaborative projects. Parking is clustered on the periphery. A usual feature is a collectively owned building that serves as a community center, hosting group meals and parties and providing space for organizational meetings, clubs and recreational activities. Both ownership and upkeep of garden plots, children’s play structures, storage spaces and tools are shared.
Privacy, however, is respected in a cohousing community; you don’t need to be an extrovert to live there. At Cantine’s Island, the side of each home facing the central green is treated as the more public space, where you can wave to your neighbors or keep an eye on a gang of kids playing together outside while you wash dishes. But the rear of each house is where you go when you’re not interested in interacting with others. “When we’re on our back porch, that’s our space,” resident Leah Novak explained as she conducted a tour of her own charming, rustic-styled home.
Situated on a 9.5-acre wooded parcel with frontage on the Esopus Creek in Saugerties, next door to Arm-of-the-Sea Theater’s Tidewater Center, the little community of 19 homes owes its “island” status to the historical remnants of a canal, from the days when the Cantine paper mill and an iron mill were located on the lower part of the property. Today, that’s where Cantine’s Islanders go to tend their organic gardens, take a kayak or canoe out of the boathouse for a paddle, build things in the woodshop, swim at the small beach or watch performances on a stage that members built themselves. The houses, parking lot, Common House, patio and lawn are sited on the higher portion of the parcel. Together it feels like a cozy world unto itself, surrounded by mature trees, the sounds of rustling leaves and flowing water muting the traffic noises from Route 9W a few blocks away. And yet, it’s very convenient to downtown businesses, eateries and arts venues. Residents often walk into the village rather than drive their cars, they told us.
Communal funds, raised through membership fees, are held and allocated by a homeowners’ association that bears little resemblance to the overbearing HOAs associated with upscale gated communities. Nobody here is going to get on your case for not keeping a two-inch-maximum-height manicured lawn, or for painting your front door a color that isn’t boringly neutral. Decisionmaking is done on a consensus model, with regular meetings attended by virtually all of the 30 or so residents. “The first generation of kids used to play a game called Let’s Go to a Meeting,” recalled Ruth Hirsch, one of the community’s founders.
Collective projects are managed by a committee structure. Although there’s no rigid minimum number of volunteer hours required, volunteerism is an integral part of the lifestyle. “Participation in anything here is voluntary, but we expect participation,” said Susan Murphy, who co-founded Cantine’s Island Cohousing with Hirsch in 1990. There are monthly workdays to build and maintain facilities or do landscaping work. Teams take turns preparing community meals shared two or three times each week in the Common House’s large restaurant-style kitchen. Roles in group projects change as members age, or as new residents bring in new skill sets, but everyone contributes according to their strengths and talents.
When we visited, the group had just finished installing several solar-powered EV charging stations in the communal parking lot. Beginning with the initial design of the houses in the 1990s, “We strive to get as energy-efficient and environmentally benign as possible, under the constraints of not having a lot of money,” according to Murphy. Indeed, the collectivist cohousing subculture seems to appeal to a certain politically progressive, tree-hugging demographic, to the extent that this community has not yet had to contend with any social tensions along ideological lines – not even in the current highly divisive political climate. “People self-select for cohousing. They tend to be community-minded.”
One principle that all the residents we spoke to embraced with enthusiasm was that a cohousing community is “the best place to raise a family,” in Hirsch’s words. There’s a collective sense of responsibility to supervise, guide and nurture the resident pack of children of all ages, who learn here how to interact kindly and confidently with their peers and adults alike. Longtime residents spoke with pride of how well the kids who grew up here have “launched” and succeeded in the wider world, with one even going on to found a community on a similar model in another state.
The multigenerational social structure at Cantine’s Island is also deliberately designed to allow residents to age in place. Even the template for the two-story houses incorporates an extra ground-floor room that can be converted into an extra bedroom for older or infirm adults who can no longer manage frequent trips upstairs, Novak pointed out. Some of the community’s earliest residents are now in their 90s, still able to manage on their own, thanks to a supportive network of neighbors – including children – who check in on them and help out with chores and errands.
In fact, it was concern for her own long-term future that inspired Murphy to initiate the project in the first place. “I was living in New York City, working as a home-care nurse, and I saw what happens to people when they get isolated. It’s not just old age,” she recounted. “I saw how it created a downward spiral of debilitation and depression. So, I decided I needed to make a nursing care plan for myself.” A magazine article about cohousing caught her attention and sparked her mission to found something similar, “where I would always have a role in the community.”
The success and resilience of Cantine’s Island Cohousing is now well-established, 28 years after the first houses were built. More than one generation has grown up here, and turnover of families has been gradual. But the median age of residents has risen, and the number of small children living onsite is smaller than in years past. While there are no houses currently up for sale, the founders and other longtime members are very conscious that it’s time to begin passing the torch to new families. “It’s a vigorous way of life,” said Hirsch. “We want to stay vibrant, but we’re ready for some younger ones who can be more active.”
To facilitate this generational transition, the group has established an Associate Member program, with nominal monthly dues, for people interested in buying a house when one becomes available, or simply in participating in community activities. While the homeowners’ association retains a right of first refusal when a house comes up for sale, it’s rarely exercised. Instead, the residents prefer to get to know potential future neighbors through regular interactions at community meals, group workdays and the like.
Interested individuals can request a tour or get an invitation to attend the Sunday evening meal at 6 p.m., Wednesday potluck at 6 p.m. or Friday Happy Hour (alcohol optional) at 5 p.m. To make an appointment, text Ruth Hirsch at (845) 430-5848 or e-mail her at heidinys@earthlink.net. To learn more about life at Cantine’s Island Cohousing, visit www.cantinesislandcohousing.org. For more on the history and philosophy of cohousing, visit www.cohousing.org.
Join the family! 
