Shadowlake Village Cohousing
Blacksburg, Virginia
-- Living at SLV --

This was a "what's new?" page in the days when Shadowlake Village was starting out and we had exciting news and frequent updates to tell the world about.

Creating a community from scratch -- a human community as well as a physical one -- is an adventure, with lots of angst and drama and no guarantees. Every successful milestone was treasured and was featured here as NEWS.

But just as new parents can't stop taking pictures for a while and then life settles down into a not so photogenic routine, we aren't jumping up and down every couple of months to say "We're still here!" This page has evolved into a description of living in cohousing and won't be updated as often as in the past.


A time-capsule summary of our project:

- Late 1997- Typical beginning- people started meeting in Blacksburg to talk about an idea that was idealistic, exciting, and that they hoped and believed was practical -- a cohousing project that they wanted to build and live in, somewhere in the New River Valley.
- 1999- A core group of committed idealistic pragmatists incorporated as New River Valley Cohousing LLC and started to search for suitable land.
- 2000- About 12 families and individuals took a huge risk by purchasing a 33-acre site in Blacksburg for 33 future households. By the end of 2000 there were 16 committed households and a successful conclusion to a very stressful effort to rezone the property to enable cohousing-style development.
- 2001- Throughout the year, the hillside and ridgetop of the property were transformed into a building site with the beginnings of streets, water and sewer connections. At the end of December, the first resident moved in to the first completed residence in the middle of an ongoing construction zone.
- 2002- The pedways were paved, twenty more homes were finished and moved into, and landscaping and a community garden got started.
- 2003- The Common House was completed and became the site for common meals, meetings, parties, gatherings of all kinds. More homes were completed and moved into. A community high-speed T1 line was installed-- initially wireless, currently being converted to wired.
- 2004- By the end of this year, we had 31 resident households and the 32nd lot was sold and about to be built on.   At last, we gratefully realized we could cut back our business meetings from weekly to twice a month, because the urgent decisions had lessened so much.
- 2005- Last homes completed and moved into.   End of our home construction phase!


A Historical Snippet: What this news page was excited about in late 2003

"In spring 2002 our first dozen families were recently moved in or soon to move in to a community that featured a lot of mud, over half of the eventual 33 lots still to be sold, a construction-office trailer that was an eyesore in the middle of everything, and plans for building a Common House really soon.  The earliest residents were moving into a place that existed primarily in their imaginations.  What a difference these last two years have made!

"Since summer 2003, the trailer is gone and our Common House is in constant use, located in the middle of the community.   Its red roofing shingles, large wrap-around deck, and extra-large footprint make this structure distinctive on the site.   The building has 5500 square feet on two floors.   We built the main level in its finished form to begin with, and will complete the partially finished walkout basement after the remaining lot has been sold and final paving has been done on our roadways and pedways, which is now not too far off.

"We are thoroughly enjoying this attractive, comfortable, welcoming home away from home, where we hold our meetings, have meals together as often as we are able to organize it, socialize, watch our kids play when it's raining outside, pick up our mail, do our laundry, and everything else that the building can accommodate.   We are in the middle of a design stage for landscaping and hardscaping the plaza-to-be in front of the Common House."


If you'd like to visit or ask questions

We don't have regularly scheduled tours, but can show people around with some advance notice.   See the Contact Us page for a phone number or e-mail address to get in touch with us. Please use a meaningful subject, not "hello!" or a blank line, and we'll be more likely to read your email.



Common meals in the Common House

Easting together on a regular basis is a hallmark of cohousing.   We try to have one dinner per week that is prepared in the Common House kitchen and one potluck dinner.   We've worked out a way to organize the cooking, the signing up, the clean-up, and all the many other details that common meals entail, but we surely aren't done tweaking those procedures.

Even though common meals are a standard feature of cohousing, there are so many different ways to handle every aspect of common meals that there is no one-size-fits-all blueprint that all cohousing groups can gladly use. Every group has to work out its own way to do it, usually after trying out different patterns until they settle on something that works for them.


The Greens and the Gardens

Diagonally across from the Common House is the Green, a triangular lawn that is wide at one end and narrow at the other.   At the wide end is a substantial structure for young children to climb, slide, and swing on.   Whether it's winter-time and cold out or summer-time and hot, the playset draws children to run around it, hop on and off, and swing, climb, and jump, every non-rainy day.   The lawn near the play area is a great spot for tossing a ball and running around, for adults as well as for kids.

In 2002, our first spring with residents on-site, we started a community garden across the road from the Green, and it was productive and beautiful.   A lot of planning went into designing it to provide food, beauty, and a centrally located spot to work in and to enjoy.   Members hauled topsoil and mulch, built up raised beds, and planted vegetables and flowers.   The produce turned into salads and vegetable dishes at our weekly potluck dinners and cooked dinners.

The original garden has been a great success, so much so that we have more requests to use it than it can accommodate, and therefore it is now called the Upper Garden to signify that since 2004 there's also a Lower Garden.   We're still working on this newer expansion garden, located on our north-slope hillside, to make it easier to use and to improve its soil, so that it will soon be as productive as the upper garden.

Between the Upper Garden and the Common House, next to the woods, is a stretch of grass we've been calling the Not So Green since it took a long time to recover from being covered with gravel and a construction-office trailer.

We're in deep decision-making mode now over how to use the Not So Green and design a plaza area in front of the Common House.   This will be a real test of our ability to come to consensus when members have very different ideas, strongly adhered to, on how to use this space, what to put there, what to permit, what to disallow -- not our first such test, but the first since all 33 households are here.  Maybe next year this page will include a description of our new central plaza.


Neighbors helping neighbors

Both before and since the community was built out, informal gatherings take place all the time, facilitated by both the site layout and our expectations.  Sure enough, when you plan for social interaction and make it easy, there are many opportunities for people to connect with one another.

You have all the privacy you want in your home, but this privacy is balanced by lots of spontaneous interaction on porches, pedways, around the Common House, and in other common spaces, just as we hoped would happen.  Cohousers are often introverted types who need that quiet place at home just as much as they want to socialize.

We also find that residents are neighborly and help one another, and it isn't because we are so special or unusual that this happens -- we know that most people would behave this way if they could.   The difference is that the cohousing model helped us create a mini-society where we know our neighbors pretty well, and we feel comfortable enough with each other to offer and receive assistance as needed.  This heart-to-heart connection was a basic drive that motivated us to persevere and build the community through years of obstacles and effort.

One of the practical benefits of living in cohousing are meal sharing arrangements among small groups of residents.  For example, neighboring families take turns cooking for each other as often as is convenient for them, and all eat together in one home.  Single residents will get together and go out to eat or to a concert or for a weekend excursion, the kind of thing that is so much more enjoyable when you don't have to do it alone.   People go canoeing on the river together.   A number of members are avid bicyclists and have gone for several days of bike riding.   A group of women celebrate one another's birthdays with Sunday brunches.

An unanticipated benefit has been "pet-sharing" -- if someone goes out of town, whether for a weekend or for a few months, others will look after their pets, feed them, walk them and play with them.  People help out when someone has car problems or computer problems, and in all kinds of every-day ways.  People lend one another items, including their cars, and parents organize a child-care cooperative in the summers.



Living in our community

The households in our community enjoy a profusion of on-site social life.  It's wonderful for the children -- there is always someone to play with no more than a house or two away on the kid-safe pedway.   You can scarcely stroll down the pedways on pleasant evenings and on weekends without frequent pauses for conversation with your neighbors.   Parents can chat with each other and with other members while keeping an eye on the children, around the kids' playset and in the Common House.

We've long looked forward to making the transition from planning and building the project to daily living in cohousing, and now we've reached that point.   We're still a young community with decisions and plans yet to be made, and we're aware of the need to help the last new members, and future new members who will purchase someone's home, feel just as comfortable here as those who were part of the founding group.

Those last new residents are still part of the pioneering days of Shadowlake Village as we continue to evaluate our processes and improve on them.   This is where the analogy changes from the one at the top of this page -- being proud new parents -- to another image -- that of getting married.   The engagement period and the wedding are very thrilling, but then comes the real challenge of people living together.   For us, being built out marks the end of the beginning and the beginning of the endless task of creating a harmonious and mutually supportive life in community.


Canoeing on the New River

The New River This story is certainly not news nor is it about daily living at SLV, but we're leaving it here to share with you the rewards of living in cohousing in Blacksburg.

On a gorgeous late-summer afternoon, months before any SLV homes were completed and when we lived all over the New River Valley, about 15 future cohousers and some friends gathered at the New River, at a river-side home in neighboring Giles County.   The group put in with a medley of canoes and kayaks, to spend several glorious hours on the river paddling unhurriedly to the bridge at Pembroke.   At least two participants were utter newbies, in a canoe for the first time ever, and very reassured to know that everyone else was experienced.

It's a beautiful stretch of the river with mountains on either side, mostly thickly forested with sheer rock bluffs standing out in stark contrast; the river is wide and meanders, and the water level was j-u-s-t right.   The peace and beauty of the river, the fun of running half a dozen easy rapids, the pleasure of sharing the day with so many friends, and the excellent pot-luck dinner in the evening made for a magical day, a real taste of the promise of cohousing.   Those of us who live at Shadowlake Village feel that our community is fulfilling that promise.



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Updated August 2005