PORCH CHATS: Great Conversations You’ll Overhear at Heartwood Commons
Porches play a major role in the knitting together of our community. Click on each photo below for a “porch chat” with one of our community members. Imagine how different it would feel during these times of physical distancing if we could simply step out onto our porch for a safe and friendly chat with our neighbor.
Can you see yourself living in a neighborhood where people know and care about each other?
Porch Sitting – Heartwood Commons Style
by Jan Owen, community member
Just as the kitchen is the heart of the home, the porch is its soul. Positioned at the doors, it serves to welcome visitors as well as offer a place to rest, converse and share stories.
In cohousing, porches play a major role in the knitting together of our communities. This is certainly true for Heartwood Commons. From the very beginning of our design planning, porches have been a consistent element. Most of our members have chosen their homes after careful consideration of how the sun will fall on the porch and how close we will be to the neighbors so that we can carry on a conversation (especially in times requiring social distancing). We are already planning them for comfort, style and utilitarian purposes with skylights, ceiling fans and screens.
These plans will soon become more concrete as we break ground on our beautiful 4.8 acre site in mid-August. We have several homes planned that haven’t been spoken for and some potential rocking chairs, gliders and porch swings to fill with cohousers from everywhere.
As a newby to the Tulsa area, you will discover that the Tulsa community is one of the most livable cities in the U.S. , with a small town feel but the extensive amenities of a much larger city (minus the traffic and high cost of living). Our site sits one block from the Arkansas River with walking/biking trails. A beautiful drive along the river takes you to the Gathering Place, a 600 acre free playground for all ages. A little further is downtown Tulsa, an art deco showplace. Historic Route 66 winds its way through the city with many points of interest. Restaurants, breweries, hiking, wildlife refuges, entertainment, health care, and sports venues are all nearby.
And while these amenities entice us, at the end of the day, we will return to our porches to rest, recharge and enjoy our cohousing family and friends. We are planning for lives lived fully, punctuated by porch visits with friends, their dogs, their adult children and grandkids. Porch sitting and sharing memories and ideas in a leisurely, spontaneous way; making plans for later, expressing caring concern and encouragement, sharing joys, this is where our cohousing soul shines.
We invite you to discover porch sitting – Heartwood Commons style – with a home of your own in our community. Call Suzy at 918-519-5298 or email for more information.
