Joan Connolly and Corinna and David Adee

An avid student of music in Medford schools, David Adee played in the Rogue Valley Symphony at age 13 and had a 20-year career as a french-horn player, mostly in the Bay Area. Lifelong gardener Joan Connolly started a landscaping business when she moved to Eugene from the Puget Sound area in 1985. The pair met at a contra dance soon after he arrived in 1998 to go for a teaching credential, and they married two years later. They adopted newborn Corinna in 2005. Adee has taught music in Eugene schools since 1999. "I'm most well-known for marimba bands at Camas Ridge," he says. "That went on for eight years." He still visits Camas Ridge for marimba practice, but Adee is currently working at River Road School. Four years ago, just as the family was looking to move from Connolly's small house on Oakleigh Lane, her "dream property," one street over on McClure Lane, came up for sale. "We were 'called' to buy it," she says. They got family help to buy the larger house on 2.7 acres of meadow adjacent to the city's Riverfront Park. After study, they adopted the collaborative model of development known as cohousing, featuring a large common house in a pocket neighborhood of cottages and gardens. Still in the planning stage, Oakleigh Meadow Cohousing has 11 committed households, and hopes to attract others. Learn more at oakleighmeadow.org.