Phil Levin and Kristen Berman wanted to live with their friends, but they didn’t want to sacrifice their privacy, so they started their own intentional community where you can choose your neighbors and eat together but still have your own home.
Today, on their one-third-acre lot in Oakland (California), there are 20 adults and 4 babies living in 6 buildings with 10 units. There’s a 4-plex with 5 adults, 2 apartments with 2 or 4 adults upstairs and families downstairs, and 2 houses with families.
They started with a group of friends who joined together to create an LLC to buy a lot with 3 buildings, but once California changed the ADU laws, they added 2 extra structures of around 900 square feet each: one now houses a single family, and another is their community house with a kitchen, dining room, living room, and coworking space.
“Radish is built around the “Obvious Truth” — that people are happiest and healthiest surrounded by people they love and admire,” they explain on their website. They all have their own homes, but they eat dinner together (nowadays, they have hired a cook which they can “afford to split among 20”).
Levin wants to help other people do what they did, so he started a website called “Live Near Friends” that searches for available housing that could accommodate groups, whether a duplex, a home with an ADU, an apartment cluster, a mini hood, a pocket hood, or a full “friend compound.”