Our Neighborhood
Meet some of the Nubanusit Neighbors here on the web. Others prefer to be met in person!
Richard, Sage, Catherine, & Elsbeth
 Sage and Richard are two of the founding members of Nubanusit Neighborhood & Farm. Richard is working with Robin to manage the financial and legal aspects of the project. In addition, Richard is a professional geologist who works as an environmental consultant specializing in hydrogeology. He is a former member of the Peterborough Water Resources Committee and Conservation Commission.
Sage is a yoga teacher, certified Waldorf teacher, and doula (childbirth assistant). Our children attend a local Waldorf School and enjoy exploring the woods, river and fields of Nubanusit Neighborhood, playing with their friends, playing soccer, and going to dance and violin lessons.
We are originally from Massachusetts and Rhode Island with paternal New Hampshire roots. We love all outdoor activities including cross country skiing, bicycling, downhill skiing, hiking, sailing, and canoeing. We also like to explore new places, and recently traveled to Mexico. We enjoy family and neighborhood gatherings, and are committed to community service and social change.
We have wanted to live in “cohousing” (but didn’t
know what to call it) since before we heard the term in 1994.
We look forward to a diverse Neighborhood with a connection to
the outdoors and our neighbors!
Robin, Shelley, Ben, Sam (& Callie)
 Shelley and Robin are two of the founding members of Nubanusit Neighborhood & Farm. Shelley works full time on project management and sales and Robin is managing the financial and legal aspects of the project. In addition, Shelley has a small organic dairy, and Robin is a management and Organizational Development consultant as well as a beekeeper. We have lived in Peterborough for 24 years and absolutely love it here.
We have two sons, Ben, 22 and Sam 19. Ben lives in Steamboat Springs Colorado in the fall and winter where he works in the ski industry and takes classes at Colorado Mountain College and he lives in Soldotna, Alaska in the summer as a fishing guide. Sam is a professional snow boarder who trains in Lake Tahoe, California in the winter and travels to compete internationally. He just completed his first semester at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah. In addition, we have a daughter, Callie, who died, after a yearlong struggle with cancer, in April 2006 at age 12. She was very much a part of the planning of Nubanusit Neighborhood & Farm and we still feel her spirit strongly involved with us helping it become a reality.
Besides the above mentioned passions, Shelley enjoys weaving, painting, singing, gardening, and various outdoor activities. Robin enjoys woodworking, reading and traveling with his sons and other friends to remote and wild places. Ben is an avid fly fisherman and outdoors man and enjoys long boarding, snowboarding and skiing. Sam is happy doing almost anything active outside, including playing golf, fishing, boating, skateboarding, biking, and anything having to do with snow.
Sue
 I am a retired psychiatric nurse and elementary school teacher. Currently I volunteer both on town committees and on foundation and nonprofit boards. My interest is in the improvement of overall health, including mental health, in the State of New Hampshire. I live alone, but am overjoyed with the company of my two dogs, two horses, and my llama. They will be neighbors, too. I have two adult children, Chris and Becky. Chris lives in Texas; Becky practices naturopathic medicine in Peterborough
I like to spend my time working with nonprofit organizations, riding, playing tennis, walking with my dogs in the woods, reading, and going to the theater and museums. I like being outdoors best of all.
The decision to move to Nubanusit Neighborhood & Farm was impulsive. As soon as I heard about it, I knew it would be a great thing for me. I currently live on 160 acres in a large 1789 farmhouse. I suddenly realized that although I love living on this extraordinarily beautiful farm, I am tired of taking care of it. I would like to live in more of a community. I have no grandchildren at the moment and would love to share my exuberance for life with other people’s children.
I suppose my passion in life is to feel that I am making a positive difference in the world; that passion is in alignment with the values and intention of the Nubanusit Neighborhood & Farm.
Lono & Lara
 Our
family includes two humans, Lono and Lara, two dogs, Lili and Teddy
Bear (big fluffy white things), and one cat, Dippy Kitty. Lono
and I met in college and after graduation moved to Maui, where
he is from. (I am a New Englander.) We spent the next 6 years in
the ocean and sun (we did work too) but we decided to return to
the east coast for graduate school. So, five years ago we put our
truck on a boat, our dogs on a plane, and drove across the country
to our new home on a lake in New Hampshire. We have been working
like crazy since then and will both be graduating this year! Once
we graduate, Lono will be an architect and I will be a psychologist.
We have come to love the beauty of New Hampshire but also became
acutely aware of how isolating the way we live is. The idea of
starting a family in isolation does not appeal to us. Lono was
researching cohousing for his thesis and when I heard about Nubanusit
Neighborhood, we knew we had to go see it. We have always liked
Peterborough (they have a great shoe store and a movie theater!)
and after seeing the land we reserved our unit almost immediately.
The project and town also fit long-standing criteria for us about
where we wanted to live: a place where we could walk (rather than
needing to drive or get on a highway) to buy a gallon of milk,
go to a movie theater, or go out to breakfast. We were surprised
to find how rare it is to find a place like this. We never imagined
that we would be able to walk to the barn to get our milk and to
a common house for a shared meal.
Lono likes to ask (aspiring architect that he is) how do we want
to live? Too often, we end up approaching housing as if it is just
another thing to own. The result seems to be a sort of societal
buyers’ remorse. What is exciting about Nubanusit is that
it offers us another approach that we hope will nurture our more
fundamental needs in a way that can make us feel good about the
way we live.
Lono and I want to raise children in a safe place, where we know
our neighbors, and don’t have to worry about cars racing
by. I’m looking forward to having access to fresh organic
food without actually being a farmer myself (although I’m
eager to learn how to grow vegetables, I’ve been known to
kill plants). We believe in decreasing our impact on the environment,
and are delighted that we can do this without giving up creature
comforts like heat and hot water (especially in the New Hampshire
winter!) As we look forward to moving in, we are eager to work
hard and build a community that we can be proud of.
Mary
 Our family consists of myself, Mary, my children, Ben and Betsy; Abby, my golden retriever; Tigger, a fluffy yellow cat; and nonresident Hott Java, an 8-yr-old Thoroughbred/Clydesdale horse. For 30 years we have called home a rambling antique house in the center of a small New Hampshire village close to Peterborough. However, I hail from Michigan and Ben and Betsy have South Korean roots.
I am an active community member as president of too many clubs, a school board member, UU church leader in Milford, gardener, change-agent, founder of a hospice and hospice facility, and singles tennis player. For the past 35 years I have been working (not necessarily getting paid) in health care administration, primarily in public and community health. For the past 6 years I have been employed to start up with others an innovative statewide health foundation to improve the health of the people of the state, especially the vulnerable and underserved. I commute to Concord at least 4 days a week and am often on the road.
Ben, a recent grad of UPenn lives in Philadelphia with his childhood girlfriend where he is a member of an eclectic space-design group. Betsy (and Hott Java) are at St. Andrews Presbyterian College in North Carolina enjoying the green grass and warm barn life together. For the past 8 summers you could find Betsy at a New Hampshire farm camp first as a camper and now as senior counselor and teacher of therapeutic riding.
Communal living is part of my soul. My ancestors came to the shores of the Great Lakes in the 1800’s to be the shoemaker in a commune which lasted 10 years. My mother was an early devotee of Shaker life. I am a child of the 70’s, and lived with others in houses in Cambridge, Mass. I have been studying cohousing for about 5 years, and decided to live the next phase of my life in an intentional community where my beliefs and my living are aligned.
Nubanusit Neighborhood and Peterborough offer me a wonderful community and small town with all that I need. I look forward to the pleasures of playing and working side by side with my Nubi neighbors, young and old, in the gardens, milking cows, cooking and eating together each week, cross country skiing, hiking, shoveling snow, sharing good books, debating about life’s challenges, and making music (my piano will be in the Common House). We will go through life together caring about the land, relationships, community, animals, good nutrition, the environment, and others. I also look forward to being alone in the woods, by the stream, in my backyard. I look forward to enjoying a swim and kayaking in Edward McDowell Lake, walking to town for the Lyceum, attending the UU church, going to the movies, the local contra dancing, and attending Peterborough Players more regularly. I look forward to supporting the local institutions of the library, the health care system, and the schools, all of which make a community strong. I will hopefully not be standing out forever in front of the town hall with my peace sign on Saturday mornings! I look forward to walking to the new organic market and café across the river, and even “tubing” down the river to town to announce our arrival our first summer! I also look forward to sharing the animals, the gardens, the river, the common meals, and the wonderful neighbors with future grandchildren. |
