Cal sharing about how the intentional community of The Rêve began
Ok, talking to Cal. While we walk through the woods.
It’s the best way to talk. I was wondering if you could share a little bit about your experience with this home and this community. How it came to be for you and maybe the process of buying the house or building the community around it.
Ok. Let’s see. I never wanted to get married. Ever. Even when I was small that was never what I wanted. But I also didn’t want to live by myself. And when I was 7, I used to get this magazine from probably the same people who make the PBS show, “3-2-1- Contact” which is an old science show for kids. So, they made this magazine and there was an issue of this magazine that talked about earth ships. And they were these wild, built out of recycled or repurposed material, cool houses with grey water filtration and giant plants to filter the water! And they were built out of tires packed with earth and plastered over sort of. They were these really cool natural homes. And I just remember seeing them and going, “Holy crap! I want to live in one of those!” So I was really excited about that. And the idea of having an ecological design for a house, and having more people live in it, rather than living by myself of living with one person…that sort of was the long-term plan. Even if it wasn’t an active plan.
Like starting from childhood?
Pretty young, yea…that idea. And I didn’t know who it was going to be with, I didn’t know what the long-term strategy was. But I had a vague plan that there would be a garden, and maybe we’d have goats or whatever (here we can go this way). The idea of having, if not the apocalypse compound thing, some other kind of, a group living situation. That always sort of appealed to me and I think I talked it up with people throughout my life and sort of took note mentally when other people were like, “yea I also like that idea.” So I think even subconsciously I was sort of thinking in this direction from a pretty early time.
That’s amazing. And you’ve made your dreams come true!
I kind of did! It’s pretty rad. It’s pretty rad. The idea of buying this house was actually a pretty big compromise because I’m from Maine. I grew up in Maine. You can buy 300 acres for what we bought this for. You know?
Right. But then you’d be in Maine. So that comes with it’s own challenges. But you could buy an organic farm that’s 300 acres for the same amount that we bought this house for.
Right. So I was like, “What are we doing? How are we going to do all the things we want to do?” Now 14 acres out here is a ton of land. But how are we going to do all the things we want to do on 14 acres? That’s so small compared to the amount space there is in Maine. But the only way it works is if Roo and Andy can keep their jobs in Brooklyn. In the city. So they have to be a little back and forth. They have to be able to pay a second rent. We are all sharing the mortgage here but they’re also paying rent in Brooklyn for an apartment. So they have more expenses and it had to be commutable for the train taking it back and forth to the city. So, deciding to live here, we looked at a bunch of places in the general 25 minutes from the Poughkeepsie station area, and this was right at the edge of the perimeter but also right at the edge of our Budget. We were like, “Ooo we can ALMOST support this! It’s just barely doable!” (It’s hard to tell with the trail. We are just on the other side of the fire pit. But where are we supposed to be walking?)
(I know, it’s hard to see with all the leaves.)
(Yea, we got to rake it. But, it’s Winter.)
So it was a matter of doing a LOT of research. Houses around here are kind of expensive because the market is doing an, “up and coming thing” or whatever. I don’t know. So we looked at a bunch of places and we were always looking for places with at least… We wanted a decent amount of light. Roo really wanted a place that had running water. They ideally would like to live by the ocean.
Ooohh running water! I thought you meant in the home. But water nearby. [laughter]
Oh, haha yea yea. Being able to run the shower is a plus. Ok. Fair. So we have that. So we have the stream that runs seasonally. It doesn’t run all the time. They were hoping for moving water on the premises. (I think I walked us in a strange direction but that’s ok.)
(It’s still a nice walk.)
So yea. We were trying to see how many bedrooms we could afford. I feel like the way that this place worked out was mostly they were selling it as a 3 bedroom which it Definitely isn’t. And that's why we were able to get it. We came to look at it on a day that another family was coming to look at it. (Let me see, yea this is the path. I have led us astray). And they had kids, I think. There was a couple of kids and they were like, “Oh 3 bedrooms.” But you come to look at this place and it’s not 3 bedrooms! There was a basement that was kind of finished, Andy’s room. But there was no heat down there. We had heat put in. There was the upstairs which is open to the whole house. And then there’s my bedroom which is in the back. Which probably reads as a study or something. Two bedrooms at absolute most. So, yea they were not going to sell it to the people who were looking at it.
So you worked out that you were able to make it work because your needs were different from other people who might be looking at it.
Exactly. We were like, this isn’t what you’re saying it is, but we have kind of unique needs. And Andy does not mind having a subterranean lair. So Andy and Roo are sharing the downstairs and I have my room. And Roo has their own workstation in the upstairs so they have a spot that’s theirs too, but they have their own bedroom in the city. So, it works out.
