Summary

Available early June: 3 bedroom 3 bath 1850 sq ft “octagon house” at the heart of Solterra Co-Housing in western Durham, NC. Community is fully developed with all ages present. Shares use of Common House, garden, playground, dog run. $397,000

Contact: Challe Hudson @gmail.com (remove the spaces)

Golden Opportunity to Live in Co-housing

If you’re considering co-housing, and would like to move this summer (available early June), I might have the house for you. You know what realtors say is important: location, location, location. This house has all three.

Location: Solterra

Solterra is a fully developed co-housing community of 37 privately owned homes ranging from 1300 to 3200 square feet. The community Common House has a huge kitchen and dining room where we share weekly meals and regular potlucks, a children’s playroom, a screen porch, and audio visual equipment for enjoying events with neighbors: movies, ballgames, informative classes, presidential debates, video calls with new grandchildren. We share a playground, an organic garden, a fenced dog run, a meadow large enough for soccer and volleyball and water balloon toss, and pedestrian pathways throughout the neighborhood. We pay for the infrastructure via monthly dues and maintain it with our own hands (and some hired help), based on decisions we make via consensus in our community meetings.

Location: western Durham, North Carolina

Our larger neighborhood boasts both peaceful quiet space and active social opportunities. To our south is the newly completed Hollow Rock Nature Preserve with lovely trails, creeks, bridges - and a solid promise that this land will remain wooded. To the north, within an easy walk even for young children, is Forest View Elementary. Across Erwin Road is Hollow Rock Racquet and Swim Club, with sports and classes year-round. Pleasant residential neighborhoods surround us.

Hop into the car and you’re 10 minutes from Duke University, 15 minutes from the heart of Chapel Hill or downtown Durham, and 10 minutes from either I-85 or I-40 where you can speed away to other great places, like Research Triangle Park or Raleigh. The Triangle region bursts with history, science museums, live theater and music, parks, restaurants, and activities to delight people with diverse interests. You’ll certainly find something you love to do here.

Location: 10 Blue Bottle Lane

Our house is unique. At its heart is an octagon, and three sides have extensions creating additional bright spaces. Huge dining and living room windows look out onto the meadow, across which you can see the playground and Common House. Polished cement floors provide passive solar temperature control and are blissfully easy to maintain. The windowless interior of the octagon are bathrooms and a laundry room. The perimeter is two bedrooms, the kitchen and living room. Oddly angled corners make useful but unusually shaped closets. Extensions off the octagon form the dining room, a bright office or playroom, and a third bedroom and third bathroom as well as another space that can be used as a small office, playroom, or TV room. A garage provides storage or workshop space (or I suppose you could actually park a car in there) and there is a paved drive with space for two vehicles.

(Images not completely accurate or to scale!)

The house is almost 20 years old and about 1850 square feet. It was originally wheelchair accessible, so the doors are mostly pocket doors and the master bathroom is roomy. The second owners added the third bedroom and bathroom and partially renovated the kitchen. We converted the screen porch into an office/playroom.

The best thing about the house, by far, is its location. At the end of a quiet dead end street off another street with no outlet, the only traffic is neighbors and delivery trucks. It’s easy to be home and busy while the kids play outside in the meadow or playground, just a glance away. Walking to the Common House or the mailboxes takes almost no time at all. Outside you can see trees, you can see sunshine, you can notice (or ignore) people and dogs and bikes on the pathways. Nestled in the heart of Solterra, you just feel safe.

Maybe the most enjoyable thing about the location is the neighbors. In every direction live kids in a range of ages, from infant to teen, with a large cluster in elementary school. There are couples without children, single people, grandparents, working people, retired people, and stay at home parents. There are native North Carolinians as well as diverse people from all over the United States and beyond. There are doctors, scientists, musicians, teachers, artists, office staff, writers, social workers, and people whose jobs just never come up in conversation.

Important Details

How much, you ask? That depends on how soon you buy! We’d prefer to sell to the right person, couple, or family - people who would fit into Solterra and be happy here. We’ve bought or sold in co-housing three times without any realtors involved, and would like to again. This means that we can save some money, and we’d pass those savings to you. The house is in need of cosmetic improvements - a new coat of paint inside, maybe some new cabinet doors, perhaps some refreshed landscaping. If you are willing to work with the house as is, we can deduct the cost of these improvements from the house price, and you can paint and plant and improve to meet your tastes, not ours.

Let’s start the discussion at $397,000, let you take a look at the house, and see what you think. If you’re the right person for this home, you’ll see why we love this location, location, location. Come, make this space and community yours.