Then, in April 2020, when the two DC-area women found themselves separated from their husbands and feeling more exhausted and alone than ever, they were both looking for a support system. It was then that they made the life-changing decision to buy a house together and move in with their children.
At the time, Harper felt like he had hit rock bottom. She had suffered a series of unfortunate events, including a divorce, a cancer scare and the devastating loss of two loved ones.
Until then, she had always followed a traditional path. She got married at 24 to a man in the army and they have a daughter together, who is now 9.
“We had the perfect closeout life,” she said.
However, “Since I was a child, I have always felt that the traditional way did not suit me. It made no sense,” Harper continued. “But I was so afraid to break the rules.”
After the end of her marriage and several losses, she made the difficult and bold decision to “burn the rules of life”.
His good friend, Hopper, was in a similar boat. She and her then-husband separated during the same year, and “I woke up one day and said, ‘How did I get here?’ explained Hopper, an in-house attorney at a nonprofit.
She and Harper often confided in their shared struggles.
“We both found ourselves living in apartments separately and trying to navigate this new life, and it could be very overwhelming,” said Hopper, who has two children, ages 13 and 9.
Also, the pandemic had just hit, and it was “a good time to think about the meaning of life and who do you want to spend it with?” she added.
One evening, while the friends were on a Zoom call, their running joke about starting a commune together resurfaced, though the conversation quickly turned from silly to serious.
Given the increasingly unaffordable housing market and their mutual desire for more support, the women decided that owning a home together might actually make sense. They came up with a random plan.
“What do I have to lose? Harper remembered thinking to herself then. His conclusion: “Nothing”.
“The only reason I hesitated was because I was told that women shouldn’t do this; people shouldn’t do that,” she continued. And yet, “I’ve done everything the culture tells me and does and I’m alone and fighting.”
Hopper had similar thoughts: “I never considered that as an option,” she said. “But it’s so normal and natural.”
That same night, the women started looking online for homes in the DC area and they also found a real estate agent. They made an offer in April 2020 on a four-unit Green Tea home in Takoma Park, Maryland.
“We walked in and were like, ‘This is it,'” Hopper said of the house.
They closed the house in June 2020 and the women and their children moved in over the summer. Once the purchase was finalized, they looked for tenants for the two remaining units of the house. Shortly after they posted on a local newsletter, Leandra Nichola contacted them.
“I’m also a single mom,” Nichola told the women, explaining that she hoped to “find stability for my family.”
She had lived in Takoma Park for 15 years and loved the area, but she couldn’t afford to buy her own house. Nichola had been separated from her husband for five years, and she and her two children – aged 9 and 12 – had lived in five different homes since then.
Nichola met with Harper and Hopper to figure out if the living situation would work out, and they quickly bonded. Although they were different in many ways, “our values were aligned,” Nichola said.
“It was just kind of an immediate connection,” Hopper said.
So Nichola and her two children moved into the basement unit in August, and a few months later Jen Jacobs — who Hopper and Harper were previously friends with — began renting out the top-floor unit.
As a single, childless person at the start of the pandemic, Jacobs experienced a strong sense of loneliness.
Hopper and Harper suggested he take the last remaining unit, and Jacobs thought, “Why not try something different?”
“It was really just a chance to be connected to people,” said Jacobs, a CrossFit trainer who also runs a dog walking and pet sitting business.
“If you can find the right people and the right place, it’s super helpful to have this community live,” Jacobs said. “You know someone is always there to help with the kids, with the animals, with anything.”
Once all four units of the house were occupied, the women — all of whom share custody of their children with their ex-spouses — quickly established a close dynamic, and Jacobs and Nichola even developed a romantic relationship in the process.
“It was a really nice surprise,” Jacobs said.
“No part of my life is spared from this experience, and that’s good,” Nichola said.
Although the women, ages 40 to 46, reside in four separate units with individual kitchens and living quarters, “we intentionally spend a lot of time together,” Harper said, adding that after a short trial period, Nichola and Jacobs started contributing the down payment so they too could become homeowners.
The women call their home the “House of the Mermaids”, named after the mythical creatures, half-bird and half-woman. They see mermaids as a symbol of feminist empowerment.
As a group, the four women regularly host movie nights, potlucks, parties and casual outings. They also celebrate holidays, birthdays and other important occasions together.
“We’re definitely like sisters, and the kids are more like our nieces and nephews,” Harper said. “We are not unhealthily addicted. We are interdependent.
“We all have this awareness of each other’s humanity and a genuine desire to care for each other,” Hopper said. “We’re not romanticizing it. It’s real and true and deep and doable.
“It was just very clear from the start that our number one job is to support each other,” Nichola added. “You have this unconditional love and support that is like family. It’s a dream.”
Living in the Siren House opened several doors for Nichola, including the possibility of fulfilling a long-time professional pursuit of opening a cafe. Together, the women co-founded Main Street Pearl in March 2021, which Nichola manages.
“It would never have been possible without them,” she said.
For the four women, the experience of living together encouraged them to reinvent the life they wanted for themselves. Their collective situation proves that there is more than one way to form a family and a foundation.
“We say, ‘You need a village,’ but who makes villages?” Harper asked. “This is what we do.”
To others who joke among friends about moving in together to lighten life’s burdens, Harper has some advice: “Go for it,” she said. “It’s awesome.”