Or maybe not, depending on your views of sustainable housing that largely does not use utility-provided electricity or petroleum-based heat.

And if you can come up with $187,000 to build it on your lot.*

Always interesting in a better way of living, we responded to a newspaper ad and headed on a Sunday afternoon to an open house at Ecovillage, a private community-housing project on an old farm along Edgecomb Road in Belfast.

We enjoyed a group session where we learned facts about the proposed community but didn't get to tour the one house already built, as the people who live there were home that day. We'll get to another open house, which is held at 2 p.m. the second Sunday of each month, so we can get inside this unique house.

A model of Ecovillage community on display at a Sunday-afternoon open house at the Belfast site on an old farm. Disclaimer: the chocolate brownies are not part of the proposed community. Milt Gross photo.

What's unique about Ecovillage houses? They are constructed with a view toward sustainability and protecting the environment. That means renewable building materials, energy provided without fossil fuels, clustered housing to make common infrastructure less expensive and provide surrounding open space, a place for homeowner gardening and farming on more of the old farm property, and more.

What interested us was the idea of heating and electric provided by alternate sources, solar heat primarily. Banks won't provide mortgages for homes without central heat, said Matthew O'Malia who one of several who presented information at the open house, so the units will have up to about eight feet of electric baseboard heat that can draw electricity from the area utility, Central Maine Power.**

But O'Malia said that for much of the time, even winter, the houses and apartment-like structures will heat sufficiently from solar energy. Did he mean in Maine? Heat from the sun through solar panels? He did, indeed. Heat will be stored and released as necessary in radiant heating in the insulated slab foundations, he said, and the units will be very well insulated.

The housing units will be so well insulated, you can heat them by using your washer and dryer, O'Malia said. O'Malia, an architect, calls the design of these units Passive House near zero. I'm pretty sure that refers to the amount of heat needed.

Fine so far.

Then came the part that doesn't interest Dolores and me. Community. Now, it's not that we don't like people. But we do like our privacy on our own lot where the deer, raccoons, turkeys, and other critters feel free to share our sunflower seeds. At Ecovillage, homeowners will own the insides of their units, condominium style, with the outsides and ground cared for by a homeowners' association. O'Malia noted that decisions by the association, which began in 2007 with seven members and is expected to grow by the end of next summer after nine families have built homes and moved into them, is by consensus rather than vote.

He lost me on that one. If a group makes a decision, say adds a rule about how loud your dog can bark, does it matter if they did so by consensus or by vote? One potential buyer asked if his dog could be chained outdoors and added that his dog doesn't bark. I don't recall the answer, but I also can't recall any dogs that don't bark.

Our cats don't bark.

One of the Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage housing units under construction in December. Milt Gross photo.

The property now consists of 42 acres of the old farm with 19 houses already in the process of being purchased, according to a slide shown at the open house.

One of the draws we heard was a statement that you won't need a lawnmower or garden tools, as you can borrow them from neighbors. If we own the inside, we don't need a lawnmower anyway, right? Kind of half right. The homeowner will have a "front yard," the from-awayer name for what Maineiacs call a dooryard, and a back yard, both of which will have grass needing mowing. Of course, the homeowner won't actually own that grass or the two yards. They're just for the homeowner's use.

O'Malia said if you sit in the front yard, you're by doing so inviting passersby to stop and chat. If you want privacy, sit in the back yard.

Homeowners vehicles will be parked in a common area to allow homeowners to walk on paths and be free of tired commuters narrowly missing them as they drive toward their front doors. Wait a minute. This is great, except for the question of how far would we have to carry our groceries from the parking area to our door. I know we're old fashioned and somewhat lazy in wanting to unload our groceries at the door, but have you ever lugged a 35-pound container of kitty litter from your car to your door? Our kitties refuse to carry their own litter containers.

A plus for the ecovillage, O'Malia said, will be the common building with room for sitting and reading, guest rooms for the homeowner's Aunt Mary, laundry facilities if you don't put a washer and dryer in your own home, play rooms, and more.

The common building will also have a common kitchen with several meals being served there each week. O'Malia, who is buying a home at Ecovillage, said he lives alone and will be happy to return from work and eat in the common kitchen. I'm happy to sit just with Dolores in our kitchen and eat the meals she cooks. Hey, please don't wander through our kitchen while we're eating. What if you should accidentally overhear us talking about -- you, for example?

The approximate cost of these homes, according to another slide, will be from $155,000 for a one-bedroom, one-full-bath 500-square-quad*** to $333,000 for a 1,500-square-duplex with three bedrooms and two full baths. You can also buy garages with these homes.

We certainly like the Passive near zero concept for a nice new house. We just aren't thrilled with living in a group. Remember college? Remember the Air Force or U.S. Army or the apartment? Remember the commune farms of the late 1800s and early 1900? Of course, you don't.

If you're at all interested in the idea of not paying the oil guy to back into your driveway or in having lots of close friends and neighbors, the contact information for Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage on the brochure we brought home provides a website at www.mainecohousing.org and a phone number, 338-9200.

If we can ever afford to build such a house, we'll probably contact O'Malia.

There's no place like home with no oil bills -- and where our dooryard is ours.

* The architect of Ecovillage, Matthew O'Malia of Gologic Homes in Belfast, provided us with this approximate price for a 1,100-square-foot house. Extra would be the cost of our own lot, well, and septic. We picked that size, as it is about the size of our present ranch house. Allen Gibson is the builder, according to O'Malia.

** The electric-heating baseboards will not be necessary most of the time, said O'Malia. But in Maine? This is not From Away Land, where the sun actually provides heat in winter. This is the Pine Tree State, where starting in late fall the sun's basic function seems to be to blind me while I'm driving. I'm fairly sure it does more, but that's what stands out for me. But I'd love to not have to spend more than $300 or $400 per year to heat the old homestead, so this part sounds good.

*** My fourth-grade teacher never educated me as to what a "quad" is. Is it one of four apartment-like units under one roof?

Milt Gross can be reached for corrections, harassment, or other purposes at lesstraveledway@midmaine.com.

Milton M. Gross Copyright 2011