Did you ever wish you had a big rambling house on a pond with fruit trees and gardens – a place you knew and loved and could always return to? Do you love gatherings with family and friends enjoying great food and stimulating conversation? Are you interested in reducing your carbon footprint and your living costs? Do you enjoy living around people who reflect a mixed-age range? Do you want a home where you can raise your children? Age in community? Live in a place your children and grandchildren love to visit? Pinnacle Cohousing at Loch Lyme Lodge was formed to create private homes and shared spaces that will help us meet those dreams. In 2006 we bought 120 acres on Post Pond in Lyme, NH, home to a long-established hospitality business. Loch Lyme Lodge and Cabins has a restaurant and commercial kitchen in the old cape, rustic cabins, private waterfront on a lake, gardens, a lovely large barn and even clay tennis courts. Loch Lyme Lodge provides a vacation home to long-term guests including families who have been coming decade after decade.
The Pinnacle Project, LLC was formed to build intergenerational (not seniors-only), sustainable (a lighter footprint on the land), mixed-income (teachers, plumbers, nurses and cooks) homes, using clustered neighborhood design (cohousing). We haven’t been able to build those homes because Lyme’s zoning does not, at least yet, support this type of home building, but our silver lining was finding the community that is Loch Lyme Lodge - the guests who return generation after generation. We operate the Lodge while continuing to work toward building cohousing on our land.
Pinnacle members are a mixed group. Some are in couples and others are not, some have children and some do not. Some have known each other since college days, others met here in the Upper Valley and still others were long-term guests who wanted to make the Lodge their own. We work in law, medicine, teaching, computing, retail and fund raising. Some enjoy singing while others write and direct on stage. Some are retired and some have young families. Some live here in the Upper Connecticut River Valley and some live farther away, in Massachusetts, Kansas, Maryland, and California. Our members are passionate about many things: democracy and gardening, hiking and (grand)parenting, reading by the pond and cooking, making music and creating in wood, clay, and metal. When we are able to build homes, we anticipate having both our own pets and farm animals. We welcome well-behaved pets to the Lodge.
Although we can’t yet live here, Pinnacle Members enjoy spending time on our land, whether walking or skiing the Carriage Trail, staying in a cabin, gardening (fruit trees, berries, flowers, vegetables), kayaking and swimming, or just reading in the shade. We enjoy occasional meals together, sometimes as pot lucks and sometimes prepared by the Lodge Chef. Members can be found enjoying ice cream from the kitchen window and BYOB drinks of a summer evening with family, friends and Lodge guests.
We invite you to read our Vision Statement which expresses our shared goals. If you think you might be interested in becoming a member so that you can help preserve and enjoy our community and the land, even if you don’t ever plan to live here in cohousing, please get in touch.
Liz Ryan Cole, Rich Brown, Judy Klavans
Managers, Pinnacle Project
info@pinnacleproject.info