Virtual Tour
Transcript
My name is Marian. On behalf of everyone at Durham Central Park Cohousing Community, I’d like to welcome you.
In 2014, after years of design work, 37 of us moved into this 4-story building with underground parking in downtown Durham, North Carolina. While each of our 24 condos is privately owned, we all own and manage our building’s common space.
Now, let’s head inside. All the downstairs rooms you’re about to see are available for members to reserve privately, as well as enjoy in community.
Our cafe is perfect for small gatherings. This wall hanging celebrates our 5-year anniversary of living here.
While our condos have their own kitchens and dining areas, this common dining room, and its adjoining common kitchen, form the heart of our first floor. We share meals, and have workshops and concerts here. The dining room is also the site of meetings of our full membership in which we have lively discussions and make decisions.
In addition to enjoying and supporting each other, working together is a key part of cohousing. We’ve found that doing so cultivates relationships and creativity.
Our living room displays the varied talents of our members, who range from artists and academics to scientists and social workers.
This media room is soundproofed for musicians. We also meet here in what we call “councils” to discuss community life.
The wall hanging you saw earlier originated here, in our project room, where we’ve also made fidget quilts for Alzheimer’s patients and played with grandchildren.
Coho’s backyard runs the full length of our building. It’s an inviting area we designed and built from nothing more than piles of dirt.
This 2-bedroom guest suite stays so full that we’ve created an on-line reservation system.
Our building has a few condos on the first floor and three full halls of condos above. Sizes range from 850 to to 1,700 square feet. Layouts vary according to size and the location in the building.
We enjoy getting together! The 2nd floor has hosted a wedding reception. The fourth floor has a small solarium where a stitching group often meets. The 4th floor terrace is large enough to accommodate our popular happy hours and movie nights.
Just above the terrace, a large array of solar panels adds to our sustainability.
Of course, no urban cohousing tour would be complete without the mention of parking, so let’s move downstairs. Each condo has one parking space. There’s a woodworking shop on this level, and storage areas.
Given our downtown location you can walk to dining, theater and film, not to mention Durham’s largest farmer’s market, and much more.
We hope you’ve enjoyed your view into Durham Coho. Please use this website to contact us or to sign up for our mailing list. We appreciate your interest.
The music in this video is by scottholmesmusic.com and is licensed under the CC BY-NC Attribution-Non-commercial License.