- Nick Allardice, 38, lives in a brownstone in Brooklyn in an “intentional community.”
- He and his partner bought the brownstone with three friends to reduce costs and create community.
- They have family dinners on Sunday nights and regularly spend time together.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Nick Allardice. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I grew up in an unconventional home.
My parents co-owned their large house in rural Australia with two other couples and their kids, forming an “intentional community.”
That meant we had a shared kitchen and ate dinner together six nights a week. Next door lived close family friends with four kids, and next to them, another couple we knew well.
I was embarrassed about it, so I hid it at school. Kids often ridicule anything different, and I just wanted to fit in. I was self-conscious that they’d call my parents “hippies.” I didn’t know anyone whose home setup resembled mine.
Often, all seven kids from across the households would be in one part of the property watching a movie or playing games, while the adults gathered elsewhere, sharing wine, laughter, and conversation.
I realized the benefits later in life
I think that part of why it worked is because four of the adults were social workers. They worked with an interpersonal relationships expert who ran a couple of workshops at the start of living together about building values together, which helped them to divide the labor of chores, maintenance, cleaning, and cooking.
We’d have community days when we’d work on a group project like clearing land or digging a dam on the property — the parents within the intentional community made it fun for us.
It wasn’t until my late 20s that I started reflecting on it as an extraordinary gift and a better way to live. I’d been so preoccupied with the fact that kids might make fun of living this way that I’d somewhat overlooked the many benefits. It offered a unique balance of friendship, support, and community while still providing the space and privacy that introverts need.
We decided to give it a shot
I discussed it with my partner, and she was sold; we were curious about whether we’d be able to replicate the atmosphere in a smaller, inner-city dwelling.
Since 2013, we’ve attempted it three times. We tried in Melbourne, Australia, and despite initial interest, we couldn’t get our friends to commit. We tried in Oakland, California, and partially succeeded by renting with friends, but part of the idea was to co-own, both to save costs and intentionally build a community. Finally, we fully succeeded in 2021, when we became co-owners of a brownstone in New York with three friends, where we still live.
The three-story Brooklyn brownstone we live in has eight bedrooms, six bathrooms, and three living spaces. Five people live here permanently (and generally, at least one or two friends are staying at any given time), three work from home, and the other two work a hybrid schedule.
We have weekly ‘family’ dinners on Sunday night in the shared kitchen, hang out on the stoop together multiple times a week (usually spontaneously), and have helped each other through the highs and lows of health, career, love, and day-to-day life. I’ll often play board games for four hours at short notice.
The paramount consideration in doing this was quality of life, but the financial benefits are also huge. The brownstone was easier for us all to afford because we pulled together and saved on all the costs associated with buying a property.
I’ve set my intentional community up slightly differently from the one my parents had. Space is a premium in New York, unlike in rural Australia, so we have three distinct units with less shared space. We hired a lawyer to draw up a contract for every potential scenario, from romantic separations to death, job loss, and house damage. If someone sells, the other co-owners get first refusal to buy from them; right now, we collectively pay a single mortgage.
They also helped us set boundaries for inviting people over and solving issues with each other. We’re all very social creatures by nature, so we love having company, and there have been no major issues so far.
There’s been a ripple effect, too. In 2022, three other friends replicated our exact model a few blocks away in their own three-unit brownstone. They’ve joined our weekly Sunday family dinners.
Proximity matters hugely for lowering barriers to friend hangouts — especially spontaneous ones. I’ll compromise on pretty views, shorter commutes, and even the perfect apartment to be closer to my friends. It means, at the end of each day, my people are there without needing to think about it. That has enhanced my life more than any of those other things possibly could.
