Lucy Beck		Debbie Ramsdell
	Tanya and Matthew		Marjan van den Belt and Robert Costanza
	Marlee, Rick & Nina		The Devine Family
	Per, Jenny, Solvei & Aren Eisenman		Cara Taussig and Marty Gawron
	Dennis and Trisa Gay		Marc Greenblatt
	Shelia Kerr		Carina Cartelli and Joe Lasek
	Melissa Mcginty		Sarah Sinnott
	Elizabeth Storey		Larilee Suiter
	Peter van Schaick		Mary Van Vleck
	Clark and Suzanne Hinsdale		Jonathan, Lorelei and Finn Atwood
	Gordon Gieg and Amy Snyder

The built environment has always fascinated me, but so have the people who inhabit it. A lifelong New Yorker, I worked for 23 years in the Department of Occupational Therapy at New York University Medical Center, Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine. As Clinical Specialist in Barrier Free Design, I helped newly physically disabled adults modify their homes for accessibility. I loved the challenges of helping people and their families problem solve renovations that would lead them back into function and a new life. I also really enjoyed working with a revolving cast of contractors and architects. During this time my husband Bob and I were renovating and gardening in a brownstone in Brooklyn, and raising our only child, Ben. I became aware of cohousing some time during that period in tandem with learning about the communities being designed in Scandinavia to include the severely disabled.

That period in my life ended after the death of my beloved husband in 2001 from a particularly deadly bone marrow cancer. With the added instability brought on 3 months later by the attacks on the World Trade Center, my son and I decided to abandon the public schools and try home schooling. I took early retirement, and for the next three years we negotiated our way around the core subjects of high school and the dynamics of parent as teacher! In 2004 Ben was admitted to Sterling College in Craftsbury Common, Vermont. Driving him up for the first time, was the first time I had ever been in Vermont, and I loved what I saw... a more laid back lifestyle, much less density, politically progressive, a haven for creative people, and beautiful, beautiful country.

I began thinking about the next phase of my life, even while going back to work as an administrator in a large art gallery in New York (naturally, starting with overseeing a huge renovation!). Ideas about what I would want to see for myself as an older person came very much to the fore. I found myself hungry for, and passionate about, creating community. I feel strongly that the nuclear, isolated family in the increasingly large residence, increasingly far from the place of business or school, creating more dependency on the car, is both a social and ecological disaster waiting to happen for this country. I also wanted to be in the country, but not isolated.

I decided to investigate where cohousing was at in this day and age, and discovered that Champlain Valley Cohousing had just broken ground. In the fall of 2005, I stopped by to visit, and in short order found myself falling in love with the land and the welcoming people who make up the Champlain Valley Cohousing. Now happily in residence since September 2006, I find myself back full circle, having an opportunity to participate once again in designing an environment, this time for myself and others, with those others. I am also gardening, and cooking, and enjoy being surrounded by people of all ages with whom to share and create.