Welcome to Cully Green!
Orange Splot LLC is planning a 23-home community in the Cully Neighborhood. Cully Green will be located on three lots totaling ~1.5 acres (60,944 square feet), across the street from the 16-home Cully Grove community on NE Going St. near NE 47th Ave, completed in 2013. Completion scheduled for late 2020.
Meet Our Members!
ARON
When I moved to Portland from my original home of Wyoming, I especially valued the array of beautiful places in and around the city as well as the phenomenal access to music and art. I soon settled in to teaching 8th grade in the most diverse district in the state-- Parkrose. There, I’ve found a community of students and educators that mean so much to me. Just as Parkrose is my professional home, I foresee that Cully Green will offer a personal home and a community that I can come back to every day.
Although teaching keeps me busy, I am committed to taking the time and doing the work of helping our home run well. Building and maintaining community takes work, but that is work that I value and am excited about. I look forward to sharing occasional meals, to teaching my little nephew to bicycle on the wide paths, and to maybe finding some hiking buddies to explore more of Mt Hood with me. I’ve wanted to live closer to work, and the neighborhood of Cully, which I lived in briefly and hugely enjoyed a few years ago, very much fits that bill. I can bicycle to work if I choose and it is also close to the homes of my parents as well as my sister’s family. The short commute and energy-efficient construction would help me reduce my ecological footprint. Also, I believe that in order for Portland to be a welcoming and affordable city, we Portlanders need to live a smaller and little closer. The Orange Splot communities, with the gardens and community spaces, achieves that in a really harmonious way.
In addition, the craftsmanship of the other Orange Splot homes is evident. The attention to detail, the careful use of space, and the quality of construction impressed me. Like anyone else, I want to live in a well-lit beautiful space and it is clear that Cully Green homes will fulfill that. -Aron Wagner
SARA
I'm a third generation Oregonian and have always had strong values around community. In college I did my senior capstone on intentional communities around the United States. I now have a dual career leading a progressive religious community and facilitating workshops and retreats for organizations wishing to shift their work cultures towards more collaborative and participatory styles of decision making.
When my primary relationship shifted several years ago, I used the opportunity to begin to move into deeper alignment with my values. I wanted to live more simply, lower my ecological footprint, and give my children a strong sense of belonging in a neighborhood. Cully Green turned out to be the perfect community to lean into these goals. I'm excited to live in a part of the city that is bike-able, to be involved in a diverse neighborhood school, and to work to building a network of intergenerational relationships of children and adults toward impactful value-based living. Cully Green is also in the same neighborhood of my co-parent and several close friends, which will contribute to a more simple and yet more fulfilling daily life. I am also inspired by beautiful northwest craftsmanship and lush and wild gardens, but as a busy single parent for part of the week, I'm attracted to combining efforts with other community members. There may be community members that are handy with tools and gardening, and I can offer my skills in communication and facilitation for the good of the group. Sharing in a beautiful life is what Cully Green will be all about. - Sara, Ingrid , Severin and Ellis
MALIN + CARMEN
Meet La familia Jimenez, Malin and Carmen, Indigenous Mayans from Guatemala. Living within the same community that they serve and support allows them to bike and walk to work. Malin has been living in Portland for 20 years and works at Verde as a leadership Development coordinator. She volunteers her time with the Indigenous community as a community resource navigator and also does interpretation for the Latinx and Mayan communities.
Carmen has been living in Portland for 26 years and volunteers at St. Andrew's Church in the Pantry packing food. She does Mayan healing and likes to help all people. Their hobbies are going to the ocean and walking in nature.
JANNE + ROB
We will be joining the Community over the coming year, before settling in fully following our retirement in June of 2021. For the past 20 years we have served together as Unitarian Universalist ministers in Saint Paul, Minnesota. We had planned to be part of the Cully Green Community from the beginning but the pandemic and the anti-racist uprising compelled us to spend a final year providing seasoned leadership to a congregation in it’s transition.
Janne was born in Tulsa and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. Rob was born and raised on the Southside of Chicago. Janne was a practicing psychotherapist before joining Rob in ministry in 1984. We are moving to Cully Green in order to bring our lives into better alignment with our values and are eager to explore opportunities for joy and service in retirement. We deeply appreciate the careful planning and growing commitment to community life that is at the heart of the co-housing movement.
Two of our children, Jessie (38) and Hannah (31), their spouses and their children have already settled here in Portland. Our son, Jonah (40), will be moving here from Nashville this coming January. We look forward to our children and grandchildren feeling a deep connection to the Community.
We are drawn both to the Cully Green Community and to the vibrant, multicultural neighborhood that surrounds it. We look forward to making new friends, getting to know Portland and Oregon at real depth and becoming part of a Community that reflects and practices the ways of being together that matter most to us.
REBECCA
I’ve been interested in Cohousing for about 10 years, and finally the timing feels exactly right!
My very first dwelling in Portland (30 plus years ago) included 6 roommates who decided to share community shopping/meals, and it remains one of my fondest memories of living in a like-minded group. The simple intentional breaking of bread together was profound. Regarding the Cully Communities, I especially like the multigenerational aspect, as I believe that is how we humans were meant to live. Having recently visited cohousing communities on Vashon Island, and in Hood River, I’ve decided that Portland is still the place for me, and Cully Green fits so well because I already feel at home in a neighborhood which includes some of my favorite walking/biking destinations, and friends.
On a personal note, my background is in education, several years as a teacher at Laurelhurst School (4th grade and 7th grade math), and now I work part time for PPS as an Early Childhood Evaluator. In that capacity, I have met (and loved) many kinds of kids and families, and I recognize the value of a village for raising children and supporting parents. I think I’ve acquired a sensitivity toward honoring all walks of life, and I have great respect for children. My married son just moved to Seattle, and we recently learned that he and his wife are pregnant with twins, due in November 2020! I look forward to a space for family to visit, and grandkids to play.
In addition, the reality of climate change continues to be a sobering wake up call. We all need to do our part to decarbonize the planet. The solar/photovoltaic and energy efficient model of Cully Green is very important to me. I’m also excited about the potential for electric vehicle charging stations, as I finally own a PHEV.
My hobbies and strengths are hiking, riding my bike, dragon boating, gardening/ cooking from the garden, keeping myself fit and healthy, and nurturing a circle of friends. Current art interests are botanical watercolor paintings, metal work, and mosaic glass. (Probably have to learn how to sew baby blankets now too:)
The folks I’ve met so far at Cully green have been lovely, and I’m extremely grateful to be among such an energetic and thoughtful group of people.
KATIE + RYAN
We are Chicago transplants. We moved to Portland in 2014 seeking a better quality of life and we can't imagine living anywhere else now. We have made many invaluable friendships, but one thing we feel we are missing (especially after the birth of our child in 2018) is family support. So, when our friends (who have a kiddo the same age as ours and with whom we share a nanny) told us they were looking to purchase a home in Cully Green, we were compelled to check it out. Once we did, we instantly felt like this is where we want to live.
Now, more than ever, we yearn for a sense of community and we want to raise our child to value relationships and experiences over material objects. Living in a place that cultivates collaboration and seeks to enhance not just Cully Green itself but the Cully neighborhood at large is what makes us excited about living here.
ELIZABETH + TIM
Cully has been our home for the past 4 years. However, our current home no longer fits our needs. Many of our friends live in similar communities and we appreciate the closeness they have developed with their neighbors. The concept of living in a community where we can create a bond with our neighbors while still having some autonomy in our lifestyle sounds like an ideal way to continue to establish our roots in Portland. We are looking forward to starting a family and would love to raise a child in an environment that fosters similar values as us.
Cully has been the ideal location for use these past several years as it is close to both our works. We love the idea of staying in the neighborhood while being part of a close-knit community. We look forward to participating in Cully Green and are passionate about preserving the integrity of the community and can see ourselves enjoying many years making this our home.
KATE + KIEL
Lulu was born December 19, 2018. You will be able to hear her coming. Lulu has the ability to project her screams louder than most and the opera might be a future career option. She is in a pacifier phase right now and doesn’t let them leave her sight for too long. Lulu is a fruitatarian, lives life on the edge, is absolutely the alpha for our dog. At some point she’ll probably knock on your door and run away squealing with joy.
Kate’s fondness for corn originated in her suburban Indiana upbringing. After 7 years teaching kids with behavioral needs she moved on to the one place in Portland people are generally happy and became a cashier at New Seasons. Five years later she has never once had a negative thing to say about work. In the first month of quarantine she read 16 books. Kate loves cooking plant based meals for people. She has a sharp sense of humor and avoids unnecessary human drama. She enjoys Japanese home cleaning youtube videos and being content.
Kiel will find any reason to don a costume. He doesn’t take himself too seriously — yet has read nearly every article in the New York Times from the past two decades. The world will always have problems to solve and Kiel believes in making small dents. After college he started a program to get kids biking to school together in bike trains. At it’s peak 22 schools in Portland had a weekly bike train. Afterwards he bought a camper trailer and parked it at the bottom of the aerial tram and turned it into a bike shop. Now Go By Bike does bike valet, bike repair, bike share, and has an electric bike showroom. More people park their bikes at the bottom of the tram than anywhere else in North America. Kiel believes in simplicity and human connections are an important part of making the world a better place.
Our dog Bella thinks she’s a person and would rather not bother with other dogs — or cats for that matter. One treat, and you’ll have a friend for life.
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