Modern Day Communes

Any chance that a 1950s suburb would become a collection of friends was dependent on the relative free time of the housewife. Only she had the need to make a community out of the neighborhood. She was there all the time. Husbands had work and clubs. Children had school. Without the housewife and her necessity to thwart loneliness, the suburb has returned to a collection of acquaintances.

The suburbs are horribly or marvelously isolating. One family, one house, one lot. With most adults working 60-hour weeks, the neighborhood bonding of our parents and grandparents has disappeared. A protected oasis of safety and comfort has become the only realizable goal.

Today, a few suburbanites are mending this lack of connection with solutions that range from the superficial to the profound. In the former category is "New Urbanism"-preaching small houses, front porches and evening strolls. These "communities" are pleasant but artificial, especially when literal and metaphorical gates keep the outside world off a pretend main street. Meanwhile, in pockets around Seattle more deep-seeded connections are being forged in forms of communal living: cohousing and especially the more flexible spinoff, the compound.

Cohousing is based in the great American tradition of shared-values and multi-family communities that inspires groups from Shakers to Hippies. Primarily childless adults live together in a suburban campus of 10 to 50 families. Predominant values include environmental protection, democracy, diversity and tolerance, with a heavy dose of personal safety.

Developed in Denmark, cohousing has become a movement on the West Coast of the United States. Since 1992 in the Seattle area, cohousing developments have been completed in West Seattle, Vashon Island and Bainbridge Island with a total of 78 homes.

Typically in a cohousing setup, Craftsman or cottage-style homes hug walkways that lead to a large common house. A casual, random garden style with flowers or native plants ties the landscape together. Friendships develop through frequent common meals together and democratic management. Legal ownership varies from cooperative to condominium to single family lots within a homeowner's association. Currently, developments are underway in West Seattle, Central Area, Bothell, South Whidbey Island and South Snohomish County.

If cohousing implies a campus, the latest trend is what might more accurately be called a compound. Compounds bring together two or three families on a large semi-rural lot without sacrificing the benefits of private ownership. Families live in separate homes, but share the landscaping and other yardwork.

Architect Cihan Anisoglu led his wife and the Stamm/Mueller family to purchase the Bainbridge Island estate formerly owned by Seattle architect, John Graham, Jr. Graham's father designed the heart of Seattle's 1 920s commercial core: Frederick and Nelson, the Bon Marché, Joshua Green, Joseph Vance and JC Penney. John Jr. is best known for supervising the design of the Space Needle.

With frontage on the western shore, an arboretum, a 3,800-square-foot home and a dock, the estate inspired Anisoglu. Problem: It was completely out of his price range. But by examining the plans, he concluded that the property could be sub-divided into affordable-tax lots. New problem: He loved the estate as one experience. Solution: He devised a compound of independent lots with easements and other shared rights on the property.

Anisoglu called his best friends and asked, "Are you ready for a life change?" In 1994, Anisoglu, Heidi Stamm, a public affairs specialist, and her husband, Tom Mueller, regulatory chief for the Army Corps of Engineers, purchased a yearlong option on the property. With a lot of faith to survive the uncertainty, they sold their Seattle houses, subdivided the property, moved and restored a stream, and found other investors in Stamm's parents. They closed only two days before the option expired, and it was another two years before Anisoglu completed his new award-winning home.

"There's no way we could have afforded this property alone," says Heidi Stamm. "Since we don't have family in the area, the idea of sharing a beautiful space like this with the Anisoglus was appealing. When you have really special friends they are sometimes better than family."

Dan and Ardel Chishoim, a graphic designer and engineer, came to live compound-style more deliberately. Beginning in 1998, they sought land in Snohomish County to build a compound for their family of five, Dan's parents and Ardel's good friend. They found three adjacent wooded lots on a small lake with a private road.

Ardel Chisholm's idea is "to utilize everyone's unique skills in developing a special place that will be our home for a long time." They'll build on the north and south lots, leaving the central lot for communal activities such as gardening.

Compound and cohousing developments continue to combine many of the post-WW II ideals of the good suburban life-green space, safety, families and friends-with the added benefit of pooling the fiscal resources of independent families. But today's vision is geographically smaller, and it depends only on the common values of the people involved, not an entire neighborhood or city. For these visionaries, home is neither a castle nor a village, but an island in between.

Seattle Magazine

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