Deborah and Richard Gordon bought their home in Woodside during the winter of 1980-81 because there was a guest cottage on the property.
Being an only child, Ms. Gordon says, “I thought at some point I could be responsible for my mother.”
The Gordons rented out their guest cottage until 1985. That’s when her mother, Sally Cody (known as GiGi), retired after working and living in the Los Angeles area.
“The family invited me to move up and live in their guest cottage, and I quickly accepted,” said Ms. Cody. “Everybody I loved was up here.”
“It’s been fabulous having my mother with us,” says Ms. Gordon. “She has been able to spend time with her granddaughters and now her great-granddaughters.”
She also has been a big help with Ms. Gordon traveling a lot in her work as associate director of the Preventive Defense Project at Stanford University.
When their grandmother came to live in the guest cottage, the Gordons’ two daughters were living at home. Ashley, 14, was a freshman at Menlo School; Carrie, 11, was going to Woodside Elementary School.
Living together in an extended family “is not as hard as some people make it out to be,” says Carrie Littlefield, now a mother of two daughters and living close by with her husband Paul in Menlo Park. “We’ve always been a close family.”
“It did help that we technically weren’t living under one roof,” says Ashley. “The guest cottage, a ways from the house, did provide proximity and privacy.”
When the girls were growing up they often would go to “GiGi’s Restaurant” for snacks and to spend time with their grandmother.
“I like to think I taught the girls to drive,” says Ms. Cody. She would ride along with the girls as they drove to high school and then drive the car back home.
When she was recovering from two serious surgeries, she says, “it was wonderful to be able to stay in the Gordons’ home, and be cared for.”
“We didn’t sit down and make agreements about living together,” says Deborah Gordon. “We respected each other, helped each other, and didn’t take someone for granted.”
When Ashley and her husband Brian Dombkowski were looking for a home to buy on the Peninsula two years ago, she was surprised when her husband suggested buying a house, only a short distance up the road, from her parents.
“We definitely should do this,” he said. His brother had bought a house next door to his parents in Wisconsin, and he had seen the mutual benefits and pleasures of living close to family.
“We made the decision — a joint decision — and we both thought it was a great decision,” says Ashley. “Again, it’s proximity and privacy.”
“I’m a lucky man,” says father/grandfather Richard Gordon, who, among other things, directs the Woodside Village Band. “I’m so fortunate to have the kids close by. Their in-laws, who live far away, are jealous.”
— Marjorie Mader
