What is White Hawk?

White Hawk is a group of people from all walks of life who have chosen to establish a sustainable neighborhood on 120 acres in Danby, NY near Ithaca. We are people of all ages and look forward to passing down a thriving village full of neighbors with diverse skills, ideas and talents to our children and their children.

Our village plan includes thirty homesites in a circle around a common recreation area. Residents have the option of being tied to the grid or using alternative forms of energy. As of October 2009, there are three completed homes at White Hawk.

Henry Peterson, a member who owns the land, serves as White Hawk's developer. As the project progresses, he will sell the land to White Hawk Inc., a non-profit, taxable entity comprised of all the members. Each of the 30 member households in White Hawk Ecovillage will own 1 of the 30 shares in White Hawk Inc.

One of the most intriguing aspects of our village is that members are free to build the home of their choice. While we offer preexisting designs that are green, attractive and quite economical, members are free to use their own house plans too, as long as they meet the guidelines for size and green building practices. We feel this individuality will add to the charm of the village.

We operate by consensus decision-making, and we encourage creativity and creative problem solving. That is one of the advantages of a cohousing village such as White Hawk. We encourage anyone considering an intentional community lifestyle at White Hawk to come visit us: take a guided walk on the land, attend an upcoming meeting or just visit with a member one-on-one.

For more information about White Hawk visit our FAQ page!

Why White Hawk?

White Hawk was chosen as the name for our village by our founding members. When early members took walks at the future village site, they often saw a bird soaring high above the land. This bird was obviously a hawk of some sort, but even the most avid bird enthusiast of the group could not tell what kind.

We contacted the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology, and they came out to the land and identified it as a Light-Morph Red Tail Hawk, a rare sub-type of the Red Tail Hawk, pictured here. By that time, everyone had already started calling it "White Hawk" since that is exactly what it looked like from the underside.

White Hawk died in 2009. We continue to enjoy the sight of hawks soaring above the land.

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