Ant Hill residents talk about why they enjoy co-op living. Justin Murphy

(Photo: SHAWN DOWD)

It was the monthly Tuesday night potluck at Little Flower Community on Parsells Avenue in the Beechwood neighborhood, and the crowd was the sort to make a fire marshal antsy — but a community organizer proud.

About 30 people, their shoes abandoned at the door, snaked through the food line, ladling vegetarian grub onto mismatched plates and filling their glasses and Mason jars with homemade cider. They ate jammed around the one main table or sitting cross-legged on the floor, reaching out to protect toddlers' heads from various furniture corners and refilling one another's plates when it came time for seconds. A black cat slunk through, avoiding small hands and seeking legs to rub up against.

Everyone seemed like family, but they weren't. It wasn't a grimy college party, either. The Little Flower collective is an exercise in "intentional community," conducted by Rochesterians of various backgrounds with a commitment to improving their city.

Joey Di Fiore, a 32-year-old Irondequoit native, founded it in 2010 after traveling around the world and realizing the best times were when he was together with others for food or fellowship.

"I didn't want that to be a passing fad," he said. "I wanted that to be the way I lived my life."

He bought a house on Parsells and sent out an open invitation for housemates. There are now five houses in the collective, some owned and occupied by families with children and some renters.

The collective combines hospitality inside the houses with involvement in their neighborhood. The most important criterion for applicants to live there is a willingness to buy into the group's community ethos, described on the Little Flower website as "a shared interest in community, social issues, sustainability, cooperative living, potlucks and the like."

They've hosted hundreds of travelers from six continents, including instrument-makers, glass-blowers and world-class musicians in town to perform at Eastman. He noted how different those people's experience of the city is from that of out-of-towners who stay at downtown hotels and bemoan the lack of entertainment.

"It's actually frustrating sometimes how many fun things there are to do," Di Fiore said.

Collective members contribute to funds for common food and also community projects, like art supplies to decorate the boarded-up windows of nearby vacant buildings and extra bicycle tubes for a bike-repair clinic. They have a greenhouse and are deeply involved in urban farming, sharing the harvest with their neighbors.

"Making your own little house nice is only going to be effective for a short amount of time," said 22-year-old Neka Zimmerman, who has lived at Little Flower since May. "I like Rochester, and I want my city to be good. (For that) you need neighbors who know each other."

The Ant Hill Cooperative on South Plymouth Avenue is another intentional community, trending toward younger residents at its two adjacent houses.

The chores are communal, the furniture is curbside chic and the kitchen is filled with buckets of grains, nuts and seeds. It was founded in 2005 and now has about 10 residents.

"When you live in a (traditional) apartment, it's a detached feeling — you're paying to live in the landlord's house," said Kris Ramos, a 22-year-old Ant Hill resident. "This, to me, it's more like my home. And it's not just people who go to work and come back and look after themselves. We really are dedicated to improving this house and this neighborhood."

Another inducement is the cost — about $500 a month at Ant Hill and less than that at Little Flower, including most groceries. There's enough demand that Little Flower can be selective in whom it accepts, Di Fiore said.

The two residences — along with EcoHouse, a collective on Genesee Park Boulevard that caters mainly to University of Rochester students, and other less formal houses in the city — are hoping to capture rising interest in city living and channel it to make a lasting, positive impact.

Rebecca Baer, a Colorado native and recent University of Rochester graduate, said she rarely ventured farther than East Avenue when she was in college. Since moving into Little Flower, her perspective has changed.

"I didn't really know Rochester," she said. "Now, I've met so many people and learned so much, I'm really enjoying the city a lot more."

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Learn more

For more information on Little Flower Community, go to littleflowercommunity.com. For the Ant Hill Cooperative, go to ant-hill.org. Both organizations also have active Facebook pages. For more information on EcoHouse, go to facebook.com/EkoHaus.