In the late 1980s, eight long time friends in their fifties and sixties decided to build a vacation retreat with the intention that they would ultimately retire there. Some were singles and some were couples. Ultimately they were joined by four more people. They purchased twenty acres in California's Mendocino County), hired a landscape architect and then an architect, and in 1993 were able to start to occupy the finished compound, which they named Cheesecake.
The three-building compound houses seven apartments, a communal living space, a laundry room, a library, and a workshop/craft room. There are also porches and lofts to accommodate visiting children and grandchildren. While accessible design was a consideration, and provision was made for future ramps and wheelchairs should they be needed, the property was not designed for continuing care of seriously ill members. To ensure members' ongoing control of the community, Cheesecake was organized as a general partnership, so that an individual who wanted to sell or pass on his or her share could only sell it back to the partnership.
Cheesecake's story is detailed in this 1994 New York Times article, and updated in this 2005 story in the East Bay Monthly. There is additional information, as well as eight pages of photographs and architectural information, in a 2004 Taunton Press book, The House to Ourselves, by Todd Lawson and Tom Connor.
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