Seniors are beginning to see the advantages of shared living complexes.
GRASS VALLEY, CALIF. — Suzanne Marriott's brave drive into the future started with a traffic jam, which gave her a lot of time to think about what she was getting herself into -- and out of.
Newly widowed and recently retired, the lanky 64-year-old was making her way to the Sierra foothills to meet a group of complete strangers that she might just spend the rest of her life with.
Left behind in the rearview mirror was a sprawling ranch house in Castro Valley, near Oakland, that managed to be full and empty all at once, jammed with the stuff of a long, happy marriage but drained of life since the death of her husband, Michael, from multiple sclerosis six months before.
For decades, the couple, avid backpackers and mountain bikers, had wandered the world together. Now she was striking out on her own, placing big bets on the rest of her life and on a nascent movement called senior cohousing.
Marriott was betting that she could join a group of like-minded people -- all relatively healthy and not that old -- and together they could build a community that would be something between commune and condo complex.
She was wagering that they could all live there to the end without burdening family members or enduring life in an institution picked by somebody else. And she hoped they would have fun in the process.
So as Marriott navigated Interstate 80 toward her fellow pioneers in late-life living, she was more curious than terrified.
"I wanted to see if there was a way to make more meaning in my life now that Michael was gone," she said. "We'd been together 30 years. I thought I was being led to something that would be meaningful and be a way to move forward."
In the 18 months since she hit the highway, Marriott and her future neighbors have done something only a few groups of forward-thinking seniors in America have accomplished.
Along with the architects who imported the idea of cohousing from Denmark 20 years ago, they have designed their 30-unit complex from the ground up, complete with an elaborate common house where they plan to dine together several nights each week.
They've attended scores of meetings, made thousands of decisions -- all by consensus -- buried one beloved member and welcomed others. They have pledged to "support each other through rough times, whether physical, emotional and/or spiritual." They have learned how to listen and how to disagree.
And if all goes according to the meticulous planning of the 16 women and four men who have so far signed on, Wolf Creek Lodge will break ground in spring here in the heart of Gold Country. It will be California's second elder cohousing community and only the fourth such project nationwide; a dozen or so others are in the works.
"Many people don't have an extended family, or it's an extended dysfunctional family," Marriott said. "We'll have this close community for, well, the rest of our lives."
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