Katy + Wil

Katywil’s founder, Bill Cole, was raised on his grandparents, Kate and Will Cole’s, farm in Virginia. Like most farms in the past, it thrived because of the many hands of their extended family. Today, most families are small and scattered. Katywil Farm Community is reviving a form of extended family – multi-generational neighbors helping each other become not self-sufficient, but community- and region-sufficient.
 

Who We Are

We are neighbors who moved here to improve the quality of our lives by cooperatively homesteading. We are children, adults, families, singles, and grandparents.

Our skills and passions are varied; agricultural, technical, financial, medical. We are teachers, artists, writers, foodies, gardeners, builders, inventors – just to name a few!

All of us live here full time or plan to in the near future. We are all ready and willing to help each other personally and collectively. Many of us are involved in various local community activities. Many of us operate our businesses from here. Ultimately, we hope to have a Community of Businesses that can benefit from one another. We are serious about our livelihoods but also want to enjoy the journey.

We are a cohousing farm community in the early stages of development. Five families live here now, another five are in the process. Eventually we will have 17 single- and two-family homes. We own individual lots and share the rest of the 112 acres, which include arable farmland, pasture to raise animals, and lots of trees for kids to climb. With the help of Regenerative Design, we are practicing permaculture, which mimics systems in nature.

 

Where We Are

Katywil Farm Community is located in Colrain, Massachusetts, a small town in the eastern Berkshire Mountains of western Mass. Our site is near Greenfield, Brattleboro, Amherst, Northampton, and the Berkshires – areas that are rich with social, arts, and academic activities.

Katywil provides a magnificent view down the North River valley to the Catamount Mountains and an uninterrupted expanse of sky that is especially beautiful at night. Families are clustered on a south-facing slope overlooking the West Branch of the North River and Stone Mountain.

Call Nancy at 413.624.3040 or email nancy@katywil.com to schedule a visit.

Mission, Goals

We are a co-housing farm community, with cooperative homesteading and sustainability as our core mission. Our Mission Statement is: Responsible stewardship of ourselves, each other, our land, our Town, and, by example, our region. On a personal level, we try and balance our own needs with those of the broader community. We are working together to make the challenges ahead of us into solutions that result in a better quality of life.

All of us are committed to the community goals of:
Food production
Decreased cost of living
Increased quality of life
Energy efficiency & reduction
A vibrabt local economy
Community and civic engagement
Equality of voice in decision-making

Our goals for the land are to responsibly grow and raise food, improve wildlife habitat, increase wildlife diversity, protect land from soil erosion, protect water resources, and develop portions of the forest for a sustainable wood supply for Katywil’s families.