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Top:Society and Culture:Our Homes:The Tigard House

This is an old web page of mine from the old SplatNet web site (before SplatNet moved across town). The Tigard House was where we lived cooperatively from March 1993 through July 1995.

In case you're wondering, we are all still good friends, even after living together for over two years. Kim and I (and I think the other guys, too) have lots of happy memories of our time together. The house survived just fine, too, as did the neighborhood.

As I'm sitting here writing this, I'm taking a major trip down Memory Lane. Living in community changed the way I look at things. I used to be pretty solitary. Even after I was married I still really valued time by myself. When we moved to Salem, both Kim and I deliberately sought out community -- in the job Kim took, in the neighborhood we chose, and in the church we chose (or were led to, depending on how you look at it). We have really come to value community and we seem to seek it out in everything we do.

Living in community, whether it be sharing a house or getting to know your neighbors (even in an apartment complex), is a very rich and rewarding experience. Try turning off your television and computer and having a block party. Celebrate the diversity God gave us.

Anyway, here's a nice bit of nostalgia (with up-to-date links) from 1993…


About Our House

Updated 11/16/94

House residents:

Frequent visitors:

Alan DeWitt Jason Pargeter
John Cavanaugh Jennifer Liddle
Michael Heggen Mike Ulwelling
Kimberly Heggen Shawn Orpinela
Selina Heggen Byron Kephart
Teresa Kephart
Kristiana Kephart

The House

Our house is located in Tigard, Oregon. There are four of us living here. We have all known each other for about eight years. We all met at Willamette University where we lived in Lausanne Hall.

In the spring of 1993, Kim and I found ourselves being forced to find another place to live. We had been living in a lovely house in a quiet neighborhood, but the owners decided that they wanted their house back. At the time, we were unable to find any comparable housing in our price range, so we asked John if he would consider sharing a house with us. He was interested in living with other people instead of spending all his time alone in an apartment, so we started looking. After a little more looking, we decided that the best deal was going to be with four people, so we asked Alan if he was interested. He was living with other housemates at the time, but was ready to move, so he said yes. Within a few days, we had signed the lease for the house we are now living in.

The house is a four bedroom, 2.5 bath house built in 1990. It has about 2800 square feet and is a beautiful place. We live in one of those trendy developments with full of largish $200,000+ homes that we could never afford to live in except with our current arrangement. It's kinda fun to speculate on what the neighbors think....

Kim and I pay a slightly larger share of the rent because our bedroom is the size of some small one-bedroom apartments and has a palatial (by our standards) bathroom. Otherwise, we share all expenses equally. I am the house manager, so I handle all the bills and organize whatever needs to be organized. Kim is a talented cook, so she fixes dinner for us most nights. We have a house checking account that everyone kicks a pre-set amount into on a monthly basis.

All in all, the arrangement works very nicely. We all get along well and have known each other long enough that (for the most part) we aren't afraid to tell each other when we are getting on each other's nerves. The biggest help has been a requirement that John set down when we started looking for places to live: everyone needed to have a room other than their bedroom that they could be in and be alone.

Cooperative housing is not for everyone, but it has worked very well for us.


Page created 11/16/94.
Last updated 03/17/03 at 14:37.

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