Cobb Hill in Hartland, VT | House for Sale

We pulled into a parking spot near a huge red barn and silo. Perched along a couple of rows on the hill beyond were a series of attractive houses, one after another clustered together. It was like entering a beautiful Alpine village. We were arriving at what’s known today as Cobb Hill in Hartland, Vermont, a remarkable community created in the 1990s by the late Donella Meadows (and others), who, among her many lifetime accomplishments, authored The Limits to Growth, a book that made headlines around the world. Today, Cobb Hill, combined from two large dairy farms, consists of 23 households occupied by about 60 people ranging in age from infancy to the elderly.

The first and largest of the hillside houses was obviously the Common House, which was where we’d arranged to meet the owners of the one home at Cobb Hill that was for sale at the time we visited. (Price: $375,000. One rental apartment was also available.) Sure enough, Jay Mead and his wife, Edie Farwell, were waiting for us as we entered the mudroom, where we changed from our shoes to slippers. Then we proceeded to pad to a comfortable sitting room, where we briefly settled ourselves next to a huge stone fireplace, which Jay indicated that he’d help build. Over the next half-hour we learned that Edie had founded the Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows Program and has been a leader in international environmental and social-justice work, while Jay is a teacher at The Sharon Academy in nearby Sharon, Vermont, and is also a sculptor, builder, and carpenter. In fact, he helped build most of the homes at Cobb Hill during the early 1990s, including their own. They’re both Dartmouth graduates, classes of ’81 and ’82, and have two sons who are old enough to soon render them “empty nesters,” which has precipitated new planning for the years ahead—thus contributing to their recent decision to sell.

Our tour with Jay through the Common House was next on our agenda. We started with the sunshine-filled kitchen and spacious dining room (residents often gather for meals) and then climbed stairs to the so-called “meeting room,” which is as large as most high-school gymnasiums. There, members of the community meet once a month (there are also monthly “work days”) and gather for movies, concerts, dances, art exhibits, book discussions, and so forth. While the adults are participating in those sorts of activities, they can look through an interior window to their kids having a ball in the well-equipped playroom. There are also a library, a root cellar, a laundry, three nice apartments, and a cold room containing more cheese wheels than we’ve ever seen in one place. (Cobb Hill cheese is sold throughout the country.) Speaking of Cobb Hill enterprises—all separate businesses run and owned by individual community members on the Cobb Hill property—there are many others besides the cheese, including frozen yogurt, maple syrup, honey, and laying hens. A large presence at Cobb Hill is the organic farm and dairy we passed on our way in. It’s operated by two community members who are professional farmers, but the entire community enjoys having all those lovely Jersey cows around; the four handsome draft horses, too. Actually owned by everyone in the community are the Common House and those beautiful 270 acres of woods and open fields, including a lovely pond for swimming and skating.

Finally, it was time to walk up the hill, past all the houses, to Jay and Edie’s eight-room home, perched up there above them all. On our way we stopped by a large shed filled with split firewood and two gigantic wood furnaces that, believe it or not, heat all 23 homes on the property. Yes, during cold weather, someone needs to throw wood into these monsters about every three hours. Residents sign up for that on a rotational basis. As to the house, we loved it. Surrounded by gardens, it’s a sunny home with four bedrooms, two baths (one with a gorgeous, mosaic-lined shower), a large, bright living room with lots of three-paned windows, a well-equipped kitchen, a finished basement, a community well, a mudroom, and, like all the super-energy-efficient houses at Cobb Hill, its own composting toilet. There’s also an outdoor patio, plus a covered back deck overlooking a field where, on the day we visited, a half-dozen sheep were grazing. It all seemed so idyllic. And most surprising of all, it apparently really is! Of course, living at Cobb Hill wouldn’t be for everyone. But if you love people and would truly enjoy sharing the art of living sustainably with others of a like mind, then purchasing Jay and Edie’s house could be opening a door into your own earthly paradise. On the other hand, if you’re a sour ol’ grump, forget it … For details, contact Edie Farwell: 802-291-2896; ediefarwell@gmail.com.