When twin sisters Amelia and Sydney Stoker imagined adulthood, they pictured their children growing up alongside cousins—a childhood they had missed. Today, that vision is a reality: the 39-year-old sisters own adjacent houses in the Bay Area and run what they call a family compound, sharing daily life, meals, and childcare.
From separate plans to shared property
While finishing orthodontics residencies, the sisters didn’t expect to settle in the same city. Amelia and her husband, Adam Fagin, were searching nationwide for an oral surgeon position for him. Sydney and her husband, Paden Roder, assumed they would head back to Portland, Oregon—familiar and cheaper than the Bay Area.
Then a house came up for sale next door to the home where Fagin grew up. His parents had kept the three-bedroom property, renting it out while he finished his education. The neighboring four-bedroom house, listed in July 2022, offered Sydney’s family the space they needed. Although they worried about the high cost of Bay Area living and the intensity of living beside relatives, Fagin encouraged them to take the leap. Around the same time, a building for the sisters’ orthodontics practice became available—a coincidence that felt like fate. Sydney and Roder bought the house that summer, shortly after welcoming their first child. Today, each sister has a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old; Sydney also has a newborn.
How the compound works
The two households removed the fence between their backyards, turning the lots into a single shared space where the children move freely between homes. Each property includes an accessory dwelling unit (ADU). The families hired two au pairs who live in one ADU, while the sisters’ mother usually occupies the other during visits. Sydney’s mother-in-law has been staying in an ADU recently while the couple converts their garage into a permanent home for her. Amelia’s in-laws also live down the street.
The seven adults on the property share responsibilities. The au pairs watch all five children together. On weeknights, the families eat dinner as a group: Amelia’s household cooks on Tuesdays, Sydney’s on Thursdays, and Sydney’s retired mother-in-law prepares meals on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. A shared credit card covers compound expenses like paper towels and dinner supplies; Sydney typically handles the weekly Costco run, and everyone contributes to the bill.
Despite the closeness, boundaries remain clear. “Everyone knows where their place is, and everyone wants to go home at the end of the night,” Amelia said, noting that by about 7:30 each family retreats to its own space.
The payoff of proximity
Both sisters say the arrangement makes full-time work and parenting far more manageable. Sydney credits the compound with giving her the confidence to have a third child. Amelia feels she has more free time than friends because help is always at hand. Sydney also treasures watching her nieces grow up day by day.
The husbands share that enthusiasm. Roder loves seeing the cousins form tight bonds and appreciates the practical support: another adult is almost always nearby, and the kids have built-in playmates. “It feels like we’ve created our own little village,” he said. Fagin, an only child, describes the bustling household as a “beautifully chaotic shift” and says the setup has given him the closest thing to siblings he has ever had.
The sisters don’t know whether they’ll stay in the compound once their children are grown, but for now they can’t raising them any other way. “The biggest pro is having that community for our children,” Amelia said. “The more support, the better.”
