Monday, December 1st, 2008

Students act as own landlords in Ad Astra house

Soap-making parties and gardening just part of co-op experience

After being rescued from demolition for $1, the co-operative Ad Astra house is home for nine students. With sustainable living one of the goals of the residents, improvements are on-going, as are social activities with a twist.

Wednesday, May 9th, 2007

Steam rises from a pot of boiling water in the kitchen of the Ad Astra house as a large bowl of pasta boils on the stove next to another pot filled with oatmeal. Sara Anderson, a 2006 University of Kansas graduate with short brown hair and freckles, giggles as she dances a few feet away with her hands in the air alongside another giddy brunette, Lawrence junior Bonnie Robinson, who is about a head shorter with longer hair. Loud electronic music blares from a small, black boom box.

In the next room over, a few other roommates watch a movie and another is buried in a book. They seem completely unaffected by the dance party in the kitchen and one pops her head in for a second to check her oatmeal.

Nine people live at the Ad Astra house, a co-op at 1033 Kentucky Street where the tenants serve as their own landlords, including regulating their rent and reviewing applications from potential roommates. The University of Kansas Student Housing Association, which has no affiliation with the University, bought the house for $1 from the Kansas University Endowment Association when it was scheduled for demolition in 2005 to make room for a new scholarship hall. The housing association moved the house from its previous location at 1309 Kentucky Street, where it was originally built by KU professor A.M. Wilcox more than 100 years ago and established it as its third student co-operative in town. The Association also runs the Sunflower House, located at 1406 Tennesse Street, and the 1614 house, which is located at 1614 Kentucky.

Aaron Paden, executive director of the housing association, said moving the house turned out to be a bigger project than he anticipated. Inching down the hill on 13th Street, it leaned so far that he worried it would tip over and the house would be destroyed. The house sat on a trailer with two tow trucks attached to keep it from speeding down the hill.

“It was like, whoa,” Paden said of seeing the house travel down the hill. “It looked huge coming down that street.”

Overhanging trees scraped shingles off the roof and the tow trucks left grooves in the street due to the weight of the house.

The housing association also ran out of money during the process, leaving the basement unfinished and some of the house was not painted. Paden said the dollar price tag was misleading because of the other costs that came along with moving the house. The transaction also saved the University the cost of demolishing the house.

“One of the bummers about moving an old house is that the expense of moving things like cable and electric lines is completely on the movers,” Paden said.

The original tenants drew up a house manifesto, defining sustainable living and group cooperation as goals.

“You are your own landlord,” Paden said. “Where else do you vote on rent increases?”

Residents also have free rein to design their rooms how they please. Sara Anderson, an original resident of the house, painted her room dark blue with colorful abstract designs. She bordered the walls with vines and flowers. She and her roommates used all-natural milk paint on the walls to be consistent with the goal of being sustainable.

Anderson moved in when the house opened in the fall of 2005. She graduated last fall with a degree in speech and language pathology and now works for the department of design and construction management on campus.

Residents don’t sign a lease when they move in but rather pay rent on a month to month basis and are free to move out when they please. Rent ranges from $250 to $315 a month and includes all utilities. Everyone also pitches in $10 a month toward food purchased in bulk.

Anderson said the Ad Astra residents grew a garden to keep food costs down and maintained a compost pile to avoid unnecessary waste. She admits the house still has a way to go toward being sustainable. A few of the original residents who drew up the goals for the house are still around but many others have come and gone.

“We’re still working on things,” she said, “People are kind of in and out and they have varying interest in the house and the projects.”

Bonnie Robinson, Lawrence junior, moved in weeks after the house opened. Robinson hit it off with her new friends while driving back to the house where they used the rocks to landscape the front yard. Robinson moved in a few days later.

Robinson said people were constantly coming and going throughout the day because the house had nine residents. All nine meet every Sunday evening to discuss issues affecting the house and to plan future projects to ensure they are on the same page.

One was a workshop that taught the residents to make non-hazardous cleaning products. Another night the house hosted a soap-making party.

“Any time someone here has something they want to teach people they just bring it up at the meeting,” Anderson said.

Madeline DeCotes, who moved into the house in January from Nashville, Tenn., did just that. She’d practiced Kundalini Yoga for two and a half years and wanted to share it with others in the house. Decotes said it improved her life dramatically, including helping her to quit smoking pot.

“Doing any drug, you want to change your mindset, your consciousness; this type of yoga does that,” she said.

One part of the yoga is the “breath of fire,” designed to overwhelm the body with oxygen in a short amount of time. DeCotes breathes sharply in and out of her nose, her nostrils expanding and contracting with each rush of air as she twists her torso simultaneously. She alternates this with slow, deliberate breaths, holding her eyes closed and smiling peacefully.

DeCotes said she usually practiced with two others in the house but wanted to provide a weekly workshop for the rest of the house and anyone else who wanted to join, which she brought up at the meeting. They decided Wednesdays would work best.

On a weekend in February the house played host to a benefit party for a friend who was hospitalized after a sting-ray attack. Studie Redcorn, Shawnee junior and an original resident, held Delta Force parties at the house last year when he ran for student body president.

Redcorn lives in the basement, a recently completed addition to the house. The housing association ran out of money while moving the house and couldn’t finish the interior immediately, but Paden said that despite the financial strain, the co-op proved to be a worthwhile project.

“It would’ve ended up in a landfill,” he said.

The history of co-ops in Lawrence is intertwined with that of KU student housing. The Ad Astra house may never have existed if it were not for the scholarship hall built on the site of its former location. The Sunflower House, which was the first co-op in town, temporarily closed after the dorms on Daisy Hill were built. Paden said the Sunflower House reopened in the late 1960s and its success since then led to the establishment of the Ad Astra House.

For now, Redcorn said the roommates were saving money to install new windows to save energy. The windows in the house now are as old as the house is. Eventually, he’d like to install solar panels on the roof to further save energy.

Paden admits the house hasn’t accomplished everything it set out to do.

“The house itself is far from sustainability,” he said, “but that’s good because it gives them something to work towards.”

Kansan staff writer Kyle Carter can be contacted at kcarter@kansan.com.

— Edited by James Pinick

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