I’ve spent a lot of my life working with older adults.

And one of the things I’ve seen over and over again is how much loneliness and isolation can change a life.

We know it’s a problem. We study it. We create programs to address it. We encourage people to get out, join something, meet people, stay connected.

All good things.

But I’ve always wondered why we wait until someone is lonely.

Maybe we’ve got the order wrong.

We prepare financially for the future. We think about our health. We exercise. We try to eat reasonably well. Some of us spend an astonishing amount of time looking at numbers on our watches.

But we don’t really think about preparing our social lives for the future.

We assume the people will be there.

And then life changes.

Work changes. People move. Children grow up. Friendships evolve. The structures that once put us in regular contact with other people change too.

Maybe community deserves the same kind of attention we give everything else we hope to carry with us.

What if we built it while our lives are already full?

People to eat with.

Learn with.

Make things with.

Go places with.

People who introduce us to new ideas and new people.

People who notice when we don’t show up.

And people we’d miss if they didn’t.

That’s one of the ideas underneath GenHouse that matters enormously to me.

We’re thinking about a stage of life that could last twenty or thirty years.

I don’t want to wait until people are isolated to start creating connection.

I want the relationships to already be there.

The habits.

The places we go.

The people who know us.

The sense that we belong somewhere.

Find your people before you need to find your people.

Because community shouldn’t be the intervention.

It should be the infrastructure.

Longer lives are changing almost everything: how we work, how we learn, how we connect, how we take care of ourselves, and what we imagine is still possible.

But much of the culture around aging still focuses on what we lose.

GenHouse starts somewhere else.

We believe longer lives can mean more curiosity, more connection, more purpose and more room to become something new.

We call this The Expansion Era™.

GenHouse is a platform for living well, longer, bringing together culture, wellness, learning and connection across generations.

We’re starting simply: with ideas, conversations, programming and a growing community of people interested in what a longer life can become.

This Journal is part of that beginning.

You’ll find stories about people changing course, creative lives that continue to evolve, cross generational relationships, wellness, culture and the unexpected possibilities that come with time.

Culture doesn’t age. Neither should curiosity.

Welcome to GenHouse

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For years, I loved being part of communities like NeueHouse, Soho House, and Spring Place. They gave me a place to work, meet people, exchange ideas, and feel creatively empowered. In 2018, NeueHouse and Musée Magazine hosted a conversation with Diane von Furstenberg. I was working on the sidelines, but she captivated me. She shared the wisdom of an extraordinary life while making it very clear she was still powerfully moving forward. She spoke about the past, the present, and what was still ahead. It reset my thinking.

Around the same time, I came across a quote from David Hockney: “When I’m working, I feel like Picasso, I feel I’m 30. When I stop I know I’m not.” As a painter myself, I understood exactly what he meant. In the studio, I’m ageless. I love creating, and I feel my experience has only seasoned me. Those two moments kicked me in the ass a little.

Sitting at NeueHouse, I began imagining a different kind of place. A cross generational community where experience and curiosity mattered, where people could continue to create, share what they know, learn from one another, contribute, and be inspired. I imagined people 55+ connecting with younger generations through universities and other cultural and educational institutions, creating a real exchange of experience, knowledge, and new thinking. A place that could be both a club and, eventually, a place to live.

I wanted it to look and feel different too. Not another members’ club, but an environment shaped by intelligent design, hospitality, culture, wellness, and programming. A place that empowers the people who enter it and supports a continuing creative life. Most of all, I wanted to create a place where you never age out. Hence GenHouse.