Three best friends from childhood decided to commit — by buying a communal house together
They now have a shared bank account, backyard, and Google calendar.
The Rachels met each other when they were five and six years old, and they met Lizzy Seitel — who would come to be known as one of the Rachels despite her name — in middle school.
They all lived in the D.C. area, and one weekend they took part in a retreat with Cheder, a progressive Jewish community in the area. In Seitel’s recollection, they listened to Ani DiFranco, went skinny dipping, and talked about their fears.
“It was just a really crazy, beautiful, life-affirming teenage moment,” Seitel, now 38, said.
It also marked the beginnings of a very long friendship.
Soon after, Rachel (Luban), Rachel (Neuschatz), and Seitel began celebrating winter solstice together with a witchy ritual drawn from a pagan book. In the quarter-century since, they’ve never missed the solstice.
The Rachels went to the same college; Lizzy went elsewhere. Then, after living apart for some years in their twenties, they decided to settle down, together. By that point, Seitel had married Serge Levin (he grew up in a communal house in Rostov-on-Don, Russia and was game for an alternative arrangement) and was pregnant with their first child.
In 2022 the four bought a giant old stone house in Mt. Airy, where they now live communally. They have a shared bank account for the mortgage, house maintenance, and utilities, along with a shared backyard, basement, porch, and Google calendar.
The Rachels, who both have romantic partners living elsewhere, co-parent a dog. Seitel and Levin’s two young children call the Rachels Aunt Lu and Aunt Nu.
The following, as told to Zoe Greenberg in separate interviews, have been edited for length and clarity and combined.
On meeting each other as kids
Rachel Neuschatz: I consider myself a red diaper baby [a term to describe the kids of radical/Communist parents.] We lived in a single family home, but we were always involved with the Jewish community Cheder. Rachel Luban and I were in it starting from age 5.
Lizzy Seitel: I grew up in a pretty typical nuclear family, in most ways. But my parents always had an extra room, and they were always having people come stay with us. There was this feeling of people coming in and out, and I really loved that — just the idea of family being expansive.
It was always my fantasy to live in a boarding house.
Rachel Luban: I feel like we raised each other, and those relationships have always felt as central to me as romantic relationships. Romantic partnership was part of my vision, but as a kid I would never dream about getting married.
On the ‘palace of dreams’
Lizzy Seitel: The Rachels and I always talked about creating a palace of dreams.
Rachel Neuschatz: We’d always talked very vaguely about living together. Of course, people loved to tell us it wouldn’t work, which is a very funny, ubiquitous response.
Rachel Luban: We had been talking for many years about wanting a more communal living situation, some kind of cohousing. We didn’t know exactly what that would look like.
Lizzy was very rooted in Philly. She’d been here for maybe 10 years, she was married, she was pregnant.
So both Rachel and I decided to move to Philly in 2019. We moved within a month of each other, and we were all living in separate apartments in South Philly.
On choosing to buy a house together
Lizzy Seitel: Having a kid, and then it being the pandemic, it was like, “Oh yeah, the nuclear family is bull--. This is not how anyone should raise kids.”
Rachel Luban: Even though we were all living in South Philly, less than a half hour walk from each other, it felt like seeing each other had to be this big planned thing and you had to clear your night for it.
We wanted lower barriers to spending time together, and more incidental interactions.
On searching for the right place
Rachel Luban: There was really no roadmap, and that was very challenging. We didn’t have many people to talk to. There are all of these logistics to figure out: Should we become an LLC? We decided not to do that, because then we would need a commercial mortgage.
We wanted a single structure that had separate units. So everyone has their own door, everyone has their own kitchen, but there are some common spaces, and we’re all really close together.
We made our own basic boundaries about what percentage of the property each person would own and therefore, what percentage of the finances they would be responsible for.
Our runner-up was this former nunnery that was three huge conjoined West Philly rowhomes. It had one giant kitchen, 13 bathrooms, and a lot of institutional carpeting. It was kind of cool, but also just an insane space.
The place we eventually found felt like it fell from heaven, because nothing else came close.
On committing
Lizzy Seitel: I knew that these are the people that are the most committed to me, besides Serge. I know we can fight and that we’re always gonna want to come back together. There’s no question of, is this friendship gonna last? We’re gonna make it last.
Rachel Luban: A lot of people, including lawyers, told us not to do this. They were like, “You intertwine your lives, and then somebody has a falling out, or somebody wants to move, and then you’re in a mess.”
In a certain way, I think it required the kind of psychological commitment that people make when they get married, where they’re throwing their chips in together. Knowing that if something happens, it could be really messy.
We decided we trust each other enough to think that if something changes, everyone will act with good faith.
On their friendships now
Rachel Luban: You get to know people in a different way, and your fates are more tied together. We had to replace our entire heating system, which is actually three different heating systems. There’s a range of different feelings about spending money and what kind of upkeep the house needs. Even whether we should mow the lawn was a discussion that we had to have.
Lizzy Seitel: We might not live in this house or in this arrangement for every year until we die, but we’re thinking that far ahead — about aging and wanting to be together in this life. That feels like a commitment to each other’s future.
Rachel Neuschatz: Probably I will not formally parent. Maybe it’ll still happen, but that’s not on my bucket list. Lizzie’s kids are like my niblings — nieces and nephews.
On telling other people:
Rachel Luban: Most people are like, “I’m jealous. I want to do that.” Then a minority of people are like, “That’s my personal hell.”
Lizzy Seitel: I feel like there’s this thing of people not knowing that they’re allowed to commit to their friends, or have their friends commit to them.
Rachel Neuschatz: I cap myself from gushing too much, because I don’t want to be a jerk. But yeah, it’s a goddamn paradise that we’ve made ourselves.
This is part of an occasional series about life partners across the Philadelphia area. If you want to share your story about who you’re navigating life with romantically or otherwise, write to lifepartners@inquirer.com. We won’t publish anything without speaking to you first.