About the Community of Stelle
The Context for CSC

If Center for Sustainable Community creates a context for exploring holistic, sustainable living, then the community of Stelle, Illinois created the context for the birth of CSC.

Stelle began in 1973 as an intentional and private community comprised of individuals who embraced such principles as striving for excellence, fostering personal responsibility, being self-reliant, and nurturing a love for learning, for life and for others. As is often the case with intentional communities, disagreements in direction and priorities led to the departure of many early residents. In the early 1980's the community opened its doors to the public, thus ending its private status. Those who remained decided to organize themselves into a home owners association, and since that time the community has operated as would any other open and democratic community with elected officials, individual home ownership and shared utility maintenance.

The Community of Stelle Today
Transition to a homeowners association did not stifle the values and ideals residing within the hearts and minds of those who remained. From this social foundation, an atmosphere developed that supports application of sustainable practices to many areas of living, ranging from renewable energy to social interaction to food production. While no one would characterize the community as being completely sustainable, many would agree that it does provide a climate which encourages residents to consider the quality of life they would like to create as well as their individual and collective impact on the earth.

Today, Stelle's population has stabilized at approximately 100 residents (all ages) residing in 40 homes, one fourth of which benefit from either passive solar design or active photo voltaic hardware, or both. Stelle has its own solar powered telephone mutual (cooperative) providing excellent telephone, cable TV, and internet service. The community water plant receives a portion of its electricity from a windmill and over half of the households obtain a fair percentage of their food from either their own gardens or from the community garden (also a cooperative venture).

This taste of sustainable living has fostered a greater sense of wholeness and completeness, leaving some community members less inclined to seek out activities (movies, shopping, sporting events, etc…) because of a need to escape, recover or fill some unexplained ‘need'. When these needs wane, a space is created for choosing a life centered on gratitude and quality relationships rather than on competing and acquiring possessions. It is out of this space that CSC emerged, and now provides opportunities for others to experience this social experiment. While every experiment in living has its challenges, we in CSC have found the Stelle experience to be growth engendering and supportive of our desire to discover a more fulfilling life. This is the foundation of CSC.

Click here for the StelleCommunity.com website to learn more about community life in Stelle. You will be leaving the CSC website so do return to resume your journey here.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are those of the Center for Sustainable Community and do not necessarily represent the views of all Stelle residents.