Muir Commons in 1991: by Laurie Friedman
MUIR COMMONS: AMERICA’S FIRST
CO-HOUSING COMMUNITY
Back in the US, Durrett and McCamant started promoting cohousing with lectures and a handbook. Together with friends, they planned a cohousing community in Emeryville, California, near their home in Berkeley. They moved into it in 1992. But by then, another California city, its plan developed together with McCamant and Durrett, was already boasting a functional community. It was easier and quicker to get permits and loans for the project in Davis, a city known for its commitment to sustainability (and its Danish-like propensity for bicycling!), and Muir Commons Cohousing opened there in 1991.
I am currently producing a film on cohousing, featuring Durrett and four communities in the Sacramento area. With photographer Doug Stanley, of “America’s Deadliest Catch” fame, I visited Muir Commons recently. Two of the original residents, Jane McKendry and Laurie Friedman, showed us around. Old photos of Muir Commons under construction show a place devoid of trees and greenery, but after 28 years the homes are almost invisible behind the lush canopy of trees, shrubs and flowers that offers welcome shade in Davis’ steamy summer climate, where temperatures commonly hit 110 degrees. Lines of bicycles, the Davis staple, can be seen throughout the community. Jane and Laurie showed us the orchard, which provides fruit for the entire community, and the small but robust garden plot. And with her husband, Ray, Jane played a mean folk guitar for us; many residents, she said, have similar skills that they share freely with others.
The early Muir Commons rang with the voices of children, but there are fewer of them now because most of the original residents, happy with their living arrangements, have stayed put and are nearing retirement or older. Their kids have moved on. A lovely, tree-shaded children’s playground on the property sat empty while we were there. But new families will be coming, Jane said. In keeping with Davis’ environmentalism, Laurie showed us the shed filled with bicycles, and the parking lot outside the community. Many parking spaces include electric charging stations.
THE BENEFITS OF CO-HOUSING
From Muir Commons, we moved on to Nevada City’s Coho community, where Durrett and McCamant now live. Set on the edge of an impossibly charming Gold Rush town, it’s a beautiful village of pastel individual homes, a modern airy common house, and even a shared swimming pool. Flowers are everywhere. At Coho, many of co-housing’s benefits were clear. An array of solar panels heats all the homes and common space and produces a surplus of electricity for the power company, PG & E, keeping electricity bills low and sometimes even resulting in rebates. Children played happily in the pool, on the walkways and on the terrace of the common house. Several residents provided testimonials to the value of living there.