Editor’s note: this is a reader-submitted case study from Morgane Oléron, part of an ongoing series of deep dives on coliving spaces. To see others, visit the Supernuclear directory. If you would like to contribute a case study of your community, awesome! Please find guidelines for submission in this post.
How many of us live in cities, dream of moving out to the countryside, but worry we’ll be isolated and lonely once we do? Morgane and her partner took the brave, brave leap to build a dream home for themselves and a wider community - read on to find out how.
Dates of operation: Seasonal (usually mid-October to the end of April for coliving) since Jan 2023.
Location: Uffculme, Devon, UK
Rented or owned: owned.
Amount of space: 8 acres of land. 3 buildings for living + event barn, 1 vegetable garden.
Governance: Anton and I, the owners, run the venue, with the “emotional help” of our Bernese Mountain dog Zuko. We host and live with the coliving residents (up to 17), all the while leaving space for everyone to propose activities, lead, and suggest improvements.
Origins
Selgars has been around for a while. We do not have many details about its history prior to the mid-1800s, but we know it was once a paper mill that later became a pig farm for a while before being converted into an event venue. While beautifully renovated before we arrived, the house still retains a lot of the features of the past, such as the old wheel and the stone grinder in the kitchen, which we now use as a sharing table for community dinners, giving it a lot of character.
Life as Selgars as we know it is quite new. Anton, Zuko, and I only took over less than three years ago.
Technically, however, it all started back in 2017, when we met while living in a 50-person, self-run residential community in the heart of Stockholm, K9 Coliving. It was a strange and unheard-of kind of community, which to this day I refer to as a UFO in the coliving world. It is in that shared living room that Anton and I met. I had been in Sweden since 2009, working for the French government and later on as a community manager for a startup hub. Anton had moved to Stockholm specifically to support the team in opening K9 Coliving, or Tech Farm as it was called at the time. That experience profoundly changed me and inspired me both professionally and personally. I even wrote a whole book about it, Have Your Cake and Share it Too, and a guest post here on Supernuclear.
Among other things, Anton and I bonded over our shared passion for untraditional housing solutions and dreamt up a future where we would have community, events, and nature under one roof - an aspiration we at times struggled to keep alive during the two and a half years we spent cooped up in a flat in London during Covid. We were lucky. We had a beautiful space, but it was isolating and, at times, truly depressing for me. We looked everywhere. But we never found a solution that matched our dream. Until one day…
Serendipity
When the world reopened after the lockdown, Anton and I found ourselves traveling frequently for work (and to see our families in Holland and France). He was visiting different projects working as a consultant for real estate companies and mixed-use properties, and I was supporting different coliving spaces in Europe with marketing, content, and copywriting. All the while, Anton also had made the risky (mid-pandemic) but brilliant (it turned out to be very successful) move to refurbish and open a small nature-inspired event space in the vacant office above our flat in East London, House of Transformation, where a team can host day long workshop or individuals can have gatherings and wellness classes. Finally, we were also working on a mini festival project called Enchanted that would bring people interested in regenerative practices together in nature for four days. We were busy.
So when July of 2022 came, we told ourselves: no trips this summer. Of course, that is when we got invited to a retreat in a cohousing-eco-village in Belgium by another K9 Coliving alumnus. Impossible to refuse.
That trip made me really sad. They were living the life I wanted: community, nature, space, exciting projects and events… I remember telling myself: “if we don’t figure this out within a year, I’ll move to Belgium”.
Two months later, Anton was informed by the venue where we were planning to host Enchanted the following summer that the owner was selling and they were closing down. We got our deposit back, back to square one.
At least that is what I was thinking. Anton had something else in mind. Having visited the venue before, he had taken some pictures and drone shots for marketing purposes for our event. He used them to create a website and reach out to the owner with a pitch and a proposal: rent us Selgars for two years, let us prove our business concept, and after two years, we’ll buy it.
In December of that year, we were moving to Selgars for good.
The hard work
Let’s be honest, we had no idea what we were doing. We had dreams and plenty of castles in the air, but we had never run such a business, and more importantly, we had always lived in the city. Big cities.
The first year and a half was hard. We had to prove to the bank that our mixed-use business was a brilliant idea: hosting events and retreats from May to October, and offering coliving for digital nomads and remote workers from November to April.
Running an event venue with numerous buildings and extensive land also presented a challenge. We knew nothing about growing vegetables, cutting trees, maintaining a building (so many leaks!), regulations… and so on. We had to learn it all while hosting people, while getting our bearings, and finding our new routines in this brand new world.
Days were long and nights were short. We had to find companies, institutions, agencies, and other associations to host an event at Selgars, which was Anton’s responsibility.
All the while, my job was to find people crazy enough to ditch Portugal and Bali to instead spend the winter in the UK countryside, coliving with us. It felt far-fetched. But after our first few colivers came, we realised that the coziness and the sense of home we had managed to create really appealed to this group of people always on the road: the board games by the fireplace, the long walks, the charm of the English countryside, only two hours away from London. We, together with these people, were creating a place that became special for them. They have since come back two, three, even four times for some.
Finally, after many challenges and adventures, with the support of many old and new friends and family, we officially became the owners of Selgars in December 2024.
Running a coliving…business.
Selgars is an interesting take on community because it has two distinct seasons: the event season and the coliving season (similar to Feÿtopia. Anton had previously met Jessica, the founder, and the Chateau de Feÿ concept inspired us when we got started). While Anton and I are the only year-round residents, we are constantly surrounded by people coming and going.
Because we host a certain type of events (such as Food is Medicine, the first Carbon Dioxide Removal Retreat funded by Oxford University, Hyper Sensitive People retreat, yoga and breathing retreats…) we tend to attract people who come back or their friends and friends of friends. We have built a network of facilitators and chefs who have become friends as well.
During coliving, we are now so lucky to welcome returning and new friends every season. Residents who come for the people and the vibe rather than for the weather.
The biggest challenge for me was to have people “pay” to experience community. Especially since the very first guests were our friends. And then the first “strangers” slowly turned into friends too… but they were also clients… and I got lost in this loop for a long time, always asking myself the same question: how do you create a community that is experienced, not bought, when you have a business to run?
I am still not sure I have the answer at times, but I try my best. And I have learnt to enjoy the journey. From living at K9 Coliving to working with several coliving spaces, I realised that what is key is making residents feel a sense of belonging and ownership, or “control”, over their experience and space.
To this end we try our best to leave space for anyone to come up with their own goals, projects, and activities. We do have a loose schedule that is up for debate every week with Monday Masterminds, Wednesday wiggles (a dance in the barn we take turn dj-ing for, followed by sauna session) or the Sunday pancakes tradition (the only one that always happens no matter what) during which we share how we feel and what we want to do in the coming days. We also have some small chores we take turns doing, like watering the plants, making sure leftovers are being used, or washing up the kitchen towels.
I personally love coliving season as it allows me to try all the random ideas that cross my mind, from Murder Mystery dinner to opening a pop-up French crêperie for one night. Our residents also have amazing ideas, such as secret Valentines, spring tea parties in the garden or an 8 am club for craft activities before work! I think the biggest surprise so far was a completely spontaneous co-created festival we called Selgarnia during which every resident held a workshop from reflexology to magic tricks and even a dog show!
Who Comes to Stay
That is a question we get a lot when talking about what we do outside of the “coliving bubble”: who are these people? Contrary to some beliefs, they are not a bunch of long-haired hippies (while we would have nothing against that).
Their main common trait is that they can work from anywhere. They are either freelancers, entrepreneurs, artists, or employees with “remote-first” companies. But not all of them work; some are still studying, and others are retired. Indeed, we have guests as young as their early twenties and as late as their mid-seventies. We have people who have been coliving for years and some for whom Selgars is their first coliving experience (the pressure!). They are coming from all over the UK and all over the world as well.
And for those who like data: based on season 3 (November 2024- April 2025), we had 33 residents over the six-month coliving period. The average stay was 1.5 months, and the return rate was 36%.
The physical space
The heart of the coliving is the old Mill with seven bedrooms, four bathrooms, a coworking area, a big kitchen with long dining tables for daily community dinners, an art corner, a music room, a library, and a cosy living room with a fireplace and a projector for movie nights, skillshares, and masterminds. We also have a laundry room that everyone can use.
Right next to the Mill, the annex, a duplex with an individual kitchen, bedroom, and bath, is perfect for anyone wanting a bit more privacy.
Just across the courtyard, we find two lodges with their own living spaces, kitchens, and two extra bedrooms each. Anton and I share one with our dog and cats, and the other one is another coliving option.
During the event season, we also have 10 cabins and a shepherd’s hut that can accommodate up to 22 additional guests. They are hidden away on the 8 acres of land (green fields and forest), next to the stream and by the veg garden where we grow (or try to) leeks, squashes, potatoes, tomatoes, and strawberries.
The workshop and the barn are the spaces where creativity can go crazy with lots of space, tools, art supplies, and gym equipment, and of course, we cannot forget the sauna, which is a weekly (at least) occurrence that few of us would miss.
And what is to come
As we prepare to close Event Season 3 and start Coliving Season 4, we know much more about what we are doing now and have more time to be present, with the land, with our guests, and with each other, and what we want Selgars to become. The progress we’ve made, both in terms of events and coliving, is visible and palpable. We might not be a conventional digital nomad coliving: we do not have direct bookings online, or a dedicated community manager ( I still have my work as a content and copywriter), we let guests move things around, redecorate in their room, paint furniture, or bring their friends and parents over. Hopefully, making them feel at home.
We do not fall under the term “eco-village” either, since we are seasonal and we do not share ownership. I guess we have turned into our own UFO. But it does feel more and more like a village, season after season. We cannot wait to see what the next one will bring!
To stay at Selgars or learn more, check out their website.
Suggested further reading:
Case Study: Open Field Co-Living
This is a guest post from Nicola Beatrix. Nicola and her partner took on the monumental task of building a communal home from scratch in the Australian outback. Even if you don’t share the dream of butchering your own kangaroo meat, we think you’ll find inspiration in the way
Curious about coliving? Find more case studies, how tos, and reflections at Supernuclear: a guide to coliving. Sign up to be notified as future articles are published here:
You can find the directory of the articles we’ve written and plan to write here.
Thanks for sharing. I'd be interested to know what kind of relationship selgars has with the local community? (I'm from rural Devon myself!)
Thank you so much for letting me share our story. Such a beautiful exercise!