Meet Our Community Members

Ross, Rachel, Calla, & pup Beignet

Ross, Rachel, Calla, & pup Beignet

Ross, Rachel, Calla, and their pup Beignet are excited to join an urban cohousing community, where they can live in easy walking, biking, and transit distance from so much of Seattle, while also sharing meals and common spaces with other like-minded families. Rachel and Ross met living in a shared house in New Orleans during a yearlong fellowship working for nonprofits post Hurricane Katrina. They have been especially curious about cohousing models since visiting their friends who live at Cully Green in Portland.

Ross is a native Seattleite and urban planner, who has instilled his love of sustainable transportation in the whole family. He enjoys bicycling, skiing, architecture, and urban design and exploring parks and cities again with a parent’s lens. Rachel is a PNW-loving New York transplant, literacy specialist, and small business owner. In addition to outdoor adventures, she likes to read, tap dance, and knit, although toddler mom life does not leave much room for down time. Calla is a book and music loving, Lego building, playground enthusiast. She is (almost always) happily along for the ride on our family cargo bike, or other outdoor adventures to hike, camp, and travel.

And last (but not least!) our pup Beignet loves food, but sadly beignets are not an approved part of his diet.

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Paula, Gordon & Julia

Paula, Gordon & Julia

Paula and Gordon are both physicists and professors at the UW.  Julia is a senior in High School.  We enjoy traveling together, especially to visit family in Brooklyn and Ottawa or to explore our favorite places in Europe (like Marseille!). We love living in an urban environment with great restaurants, museums, the market, and movie theatres within easy walking distance. We also enjoy skiing at Snoqualmie, about 50 minutes away. CHUC is attractive to us because of its urban orientation and its multigenerational character.

L-R: Kuma Dog, Michael, Mikey, Bambi, Isabella, Violet, Ciela

L-R: Kuma Dog, Michael, Mikey, Bambi, Isabella, Violet, Ciela

Michael and Bambi and their four children enjoy being a part of the CHUC community, and greater Capitol Hill community, and all the urban goodness that entails. This fun-loving family loves to travel and explore new cultures and cuisines, and is always ready to break into spontaneous dance when inspired by the right song at the right volume.

Grace, Mike & Ella

Grace, Mike & Ella

 Mike and Grace are the co-founders of Capitol Hill Urban Cohousing. They purchased the property in 2008 with the express purpose of developing a community and started hosting meetings in 2010. They are also architects and co-founders of Schemata Workshop – an award winning architectural practice based on Seattle, on the ground floor of our building. They met in Architecture School at Washington State University and moved to Chicago after graduation to work for large international firms.

Mike (he/him) enjoys snowboarding, sailing, and biking. During the summer, he organizes a bike tuning/fixing event for residents in the building.

Grace (she/her) was born in Seoul, South Korea and moved to Seattle at age 3. She attended architecture school at both Washington State University (BArch) and the University of Washington (MArch). She served on the board of the Cohousing Association of the US, chairing the National Conference in 2009 and 2019, as well as organizing an International Cohousing Summit in 2009 and 2021, and currently serves on their Professional Advisory Council. In 2017, she gave a TED Talk about cohousing and how it can help prevent loneliness – which has received more than 3M views. Grace has served on many local committees and boards, most notably the Seattle Planning Commission and currently the Housing Development Consortium of Seattle/King County. In 2021, she was inducted into the College of Fellows by the American Institute of Architects. In her spare time, Grace enjoys traveling, playing piano, downhill skiing, playing board games, and cooking Korean food for her community.

Emmanuella (he/him) is a Garfield High School student, who plays piano and bass, likes baking and sharing food with the community, drawing/painting, playing games online and with neighbors, and has an interest in architecture. Growing up in Seattle, he enjoys exploring the city with friends, skiing, and camping around the Pacific Northwest with his family. 

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The Eriksens

The Eriksens

Doug and Kate have lived on Capitol Hill since 2004. They enjoy walking through the city (and other cities, too) with their son Leaf. Local music and great food are passions that they enjoy together as often as possible. Kate is a mathematics teacher with Seattle Public Schools’ Interagency Academy. This is challenging work that she loves doing; bringing kindness, humor, and curiosity to her work with the youth that she serves. Kate enjoys spending time with her son Leaf and high school sweetheart and husband Doug. Doug is a librarian at Seattle University. He is famous (in his circle of friends and family) for remembering nearly everything he reads and consequently knowing something about most things and a great deal about a few things. Doug prefers to get where he’s going by walking and is a generous and patient listener. Leaf is studying art and design at Seattle University. In his free time he enjoys drawing, reading books and visual novels, and playing action-adventure games.
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Audrey

Audrey

After raising her kids in Winslow Cohousing, Audrey believes cohousing is a great way to live. Creating community is one of her passions, and she enjoys helping to create a sustainable urban cohousing experience. She loves Puget Sound,  enjoys walking, kayaking, biking, has season tickets to 3 Seattle theaters, and takes arts and craft classes for fun as well as classes at UW.  Lately she’s been doing a lot of traveling, enjoying life after working for a non-profit and in tech for many years.

Bennie & Julie

Bennie & Julie

Bennie and Julie have lived in Seattle proper since 2013 and within the Pacific Northwest since the early 90s. Now empty-nesters, they collectively have two daughters, Tristen and Brianna, and two sons, Ryan and Andrew. Which leads to one of their favorite activities, hosting their kids, family and friends in festive gatherings—which includes their love of cooking, eating, and entertaining. Together, Bennie and Julie are big Seattle sports fans (and LA Dodgers), lovers of a wide variety of music (except country), both city and nature exploring, and exercising—especially yoga. Julie is passionate about equity issues—especially related to access and quality within education impacting youth. Her day job is working in elementary education as a literacy specialist. Beyond the above, she plays on an USTA tennis team, tears through books, and skis. Bennie is a marketing entrepreneur helping business optimize their customer experiences. Beyond sports and music, he often spends his time feeding his thirst for learning—whether about history, a new way to do something better, recipes, or simply how to solve the problem that is currently before him. They’re drawn to CHUC because it’s both an intentional and social community—and within the heart of our vibrant city.
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Spencer & Sheila

Spencer & Sheila

Spencer retired after 25 years teaching in Seattle Public Schools. He served at Stevens Elementary, mostly in the classroom and eventually as a PE teacher. He comes from a large family and is hoping to establish a greater connection with others through life at CHUC. I’m still deliriously in love with Sheila after 40+ years. We love riding our tandem bike. Check out our cross-country bicycle trip. Sheila is originally from Newport, RI, She settled on Seattle’s Capitol Hill 40+ years ago after working in Korea & Germany in the ‘70s. She loves the walkability, diversity and density of this neighborhood.  Over the years she has provided founding energy for EarthSave Seattle and The Evergreen Tandem Club and served as the first HOA President of our condo after we downsized in ‘06. When not riding our tandem, doing yoga or fixing vegan meals she does website design in WordPress.
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The Granites

The Granites

We are a family of 4 who enjoy living in an urban context. We live, work and play in Capitol Hill. A typical Saturday often includes: Jerry playing tennis in the park, Jack kicking a soccer ball with anyone who’s willing to join him, and Katelyn taking a hip-hop dance class.  We enjoy making and eating meals together, listening to music and playing board games (especially Settlers of Catan, Dixit and chess). Another family interest is reading.  At any given time, you’ll find a pile of books near our fireplace, or several ‘tabs’ open to various articles to be read on our digital readers. We love visiting Ms. Carol (the children’s librarian) at the Capitol Hill Library.  Katelyn and Jack run a book club at Jack’s school, their favorite read so far this year is Jack and the Seven Deadly Giants by, Sam Swope.  Jerry always has the most recent cookbooks and tech books in his queue. Jerry works as a web developer and just released a cookbook app and works with a variety of technologies. Katelyn is on maternity leave from the public school system.  Jack is a student, builder of Legos, maker of art, and lover of music. We have lived in community in the past, and are looking forward to sharing life more intentionally with an intergenerational group in the near future!
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