On a quarter acre of land in Eugene’s Santa Clara neighborhood live three friends. Between them are decades of stories — of loss, health care, chickens and, most notably, an age gap. Tea is a regular ritual in the house, and over cups shared together, Sue Sierralupe, Debra Birkinshaw Harrow and Sequoia Merced are often reminded they are more than just roommates. 

“I consider them like family already,” Merced says. “It’s just quiet, peaceful.”

For all three, living together was less a master plan and more a series of life changes bringing them to the same place. A divorce. A death. A career change. A desire for community. What began as an opportunity to live with like-minded individuals became a home where age matters less than the ways they care and show up for one another. 

While many people Merced’s age can’t even begin to fathom living with a former boss, let alone a 72-year-old creative “boomer” and a 62-year-old “wild-haired” case manager, the 32-year-old licensed practical nurse naturally saw the benefit of intergenerational living. 

“I just really respected the people that they are,” Merced says. “I was hoping throughout this osmosis I can get some of that wisdom and experience.” 

That friendship began long before any of them shared a roof. 

In 2013, Sierralupe was the clinic manager and lead herbalist at Occupy Medical, a free integrated health care clinic. Harrow stepped through the doors of the then-mobile clinic with her husband, Bruce. 

The couple began volunteering with Sierralupe. Harrow joined the herbalist team, working closely with Sierralupe, growing a friendship along with lemon balm. Bruce offered his provider services as a medical doctor. 

As years passed, Bruce was diagnosed with lymphoma and died in 2021. After his death, Harrow moved to Medford to be closer to family. She stayed there for four years, surrounded by loved ones, but Eugene was never far from her mind. She knew she wanted to return.  

By then, Sierralupe had already begun a new chapter of her own. After nine years, she left Occupy Medical and became the clinic manager at HIV Alliance. In 2023, she hired and worked with Merced as a lead licensed practical nurse. 

Their relationship had started in different places and at different times: a free clinic, a workplace, friendships building over years, until those separate threads began to weave together. 

Sierralupe moved onto the quarter-acre property in September 2025 following a divorce. Harrow was preparing to return to Eugene after heart surgery. Merced, meanwhile, was looking for a new place to call home.

The two-bedroom house, with a converted garage apartment, turned out to be an unlikely fit for the trio — or the “triumvirate” as Harrow calls them. Garden beds overflow with food for the two vegetarians and the one vegan. Chickens are spoiled, spending enough time with the threesome to become lap chickens. The cats and a dog finish out this community. 

“We really feel like we’ve built [the land] as a sanctuary or a refuge for ourselves,” Sierralupe says. 

Their personalities make the arrangement work. Sierralupe is the natural, compassionate leader and the tallest of the group, the one who takes on projects around the house like building a kitchen island. Harrow is a retired occupational therapist and teaches art at Cascadia Learning Cooperative while supporting the household. Merced, the youngest, describes themself as more of a homebody, happy to absorb the wisdom and experience of the women around her. 

The age difference, which might seem like the defining feature of the household from the outside, often fades into the background. Instead, they encourage one another to do things they might not have done alone. 

“So I think that they just, there’s so much confidence that we have in each other that we pick up these projects,” Sierralupe says. 

One night, Sierralupe pulled out an astronomy app and pointed it toward the sky, showing Harrow and Merced Venus above the Moon. 

“It’s all spur of the moment,” Harrow says, “that’s the kind of thing we do. We just want to be out in nature and enjoying it.” 

When the most recent lunar eclipse arrived, they didn’t simply watch it. They danced. 

Other times, encouragement looks less whimsical. Merced knows that after a difficult day at work, her first instinct is often to stay at home. One day, when Harrow and Sierralupe suggested that the roommates go for a walk, she declined. 

Not even five minutes later, there was a knock on her door. Sierralupe was there. 

“Are you ready to go?” she asked. 

Merced wasn’t really ready. But they went. 

“They’re good friends of both of them,” Merced says. “I was having a hard day, and then you showed up.”

For Merced, moments like that are part of what makes the arrangement work. 

“We naturally seem to be drawn to supporting one another in a way that, for me, feels balanced,” Merced says.  “We all find ways to help one another.”

From the outside, the household can feel reminiscent of the Golden Girls: the three of them with their distinct personalities, different generations and enough quirks to fill a sitcom. But their lives don’t fit neatly into the show’s four walls. 

What they have built is less about age and more about choice — the choice to live with people who challenge them, care for them, pull them into the world when they would rather stay at home. 

For Sierralupe, living between generations has changed how she thinks about the community around her, and about growing old herself. 

“Being kind of in that middle spot has helped me broaden my view of the community that I live in and forecast what the community’s going to look like,” Sierralupe says. “So it makes the world a little less scary.”

Now a year after Sierralupe first arrived, the three have created something that none of them could have built alone: a home. A home where curiosity is encouraged, help is freely offered and growing old does not mean growing more isolated. 

“It’s a rare blessing,” Sierralupe says.