A move across the Atlantic Ocean into the arms of nearly two dozen housemates was not what Ishan Abeysekera had envisioned for himself. But that’s his life now, and he’s embraced it.
“I basically went from nearly living on my own for the first time in my adult life in London to basically living with 23 others,” he said. “I’m just like, you know what, if you did and it feels right, you change your plans and adapt accordingly.”
Mr. Abeysekera, 32, an engineer originally from Sri Lanka, had been living in London with roommates since he was 18 and in college. In 2021, he was planning to try living solo and was just about to buy a flat when his company offered him a position in New York City.
By the next fall, he had moved to the United States and into a temporary apartment in the Financial District, paid for by the company.
He lived there for two months as he hunted for one-bedrooms and studios in the East Village, but was not impressed. Then he looked for something different.
“I Googled ‘communal living in Brooklyn,’ and Cohabs came up,” he said.
Cohabs is a company that offers “co-living” for people 18 or older in shared homes in New York, London, Brussels and Paris, among other cities. It plans to have 16 houses in Brooklyn and Manhattan open by the end of June.
Mr. Abeysekera was intrigued. He visited what became his home, a four-story, 24-bedroom building on a corner in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and was sold when he saw a group of people having dinner together on a weeknight. He figured that living in a bigger place would increase his odds of making friends.
“If I’m going to live with people, might as well go the whole way,” he said.
Twenty-four people living in one house may conjure ideas of fraternities, dormitories or hostels. That’s not far from reality. Cohabs says the housemates in Mr. Abeysekera’s building are between the ages of 22 and 37, with an average age of 28, putting him on the older end.
“Some of my friends are like, ‘OK, so basically you’ve just, like, regressed and gone back to college?’” Mr. Abeysekera said. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, and I’m loving it.’ It’s very much like college, but everyone’s a lot more respectful and things are a bit cleaner.”
$2,100 | Crown Heights, Brooklyn
Ishan Abeysekera, 32
Occupation: Structural engineer
On stocks: During the pandemic, Mr. Abeysekera got into value investing. “I just tried to buy things for a lot less than I think they’re worth,” he said. “Nothing anywhere near as exciting or crazy as day trading.”
On free time: Mr. Abeysekera’s favorite ways to spend time in New York include seeing Broadway shows, visiting the American Museum of Natural History and surfing in the Rockaways. He also likes taking walks across the Brooklyn Bridge — “partially because I’m an engineer, but the view is really beautiful.”
A cleaning service comes weekly to take care of common areas, including the living rooms, work spaces and bathrooms, which are shared by up to three people. The building also has a movie room, a gym and a laundry room in the basement, as well as an outdoor terrace and a roof deck.
Each bedroom comes furnished with a bed, a desk and a safe. Bedding is provided for an additional fee.
The kitchens — a central one on the first floor and a smaller one on each floor above — have dishes and basic provisions. Each tenant gets a shelf in a refrigerator, as well as a locker to use as a pantry.
The rent includes utilities and internet service; household supplies like toilet paper, soap and garbage bags; and a monthly communal breakfast.
Mr. Abeysekera pays $2,100 for the biggest room in the house, complete with a walk-in closet. He said he had realized his goal of making friends, mostly thanks to his living situation.
“If you want to be social, you can do that,” he said. “If you’ve had a long day, you can go to your room, and things are generally soundproofed so you don’t hear the merriment.”
For making plans, spreading the word about parties, giving heads-ups about guests and sharing cooking ingredients, there’s the housewide group chat. Sometimes the posts get creative, Mr. Abeysekera said: In response to a mess in the kitchen, one housemate created a joke video with step-by-step directions for how to do dishes.
Cohabs organizes regular housemate events, including weekend trips upstate, yoga, art classes and happy hours, some of which are open to residents of any of the company’s New York properties. Housemates also throw parties of their own: Mr. Abeysekera recalled one in which the basement movie lounge was transformed into something of a club, with around 100 attendees.
With dozens of housemates and their friends mingling at all hours, how much privacy one has “depends entirely on what the route to your room is,” Mr. Abeysekera said. Residents who must walk through a common space on the way to their rooms may not be able to sneak in.
Mr. Abeysekera works from his Manhattan office almost every day and hits the climbing gym about twice a week, typically with other Cohabs residents. He admitted that the Cohabs life could be a bubble if he didn’t make the effort to meet people outside the ecosystem.
Still, he plans to stay in the Cohabs house for the foreseeable future, unless he experiences “a big life change,” he said, like getting into a serious relationship.
“Some people don’t like the fact that there are some people who only are there for three months,” he said. “They feel like, oh, you can’t really build the connection. But I kind of love it.”
Mr. Abeysekera’s friend and Cohabs housemate David Prieto had a different perspective.
Mr. Prieto, 32, said that while he appreciated the Cohabs community, he was wary of the “Peter Pan syndrome” that could develop there. He thought of his stay in the house as transitional, and likened the “really deep, lifelong friendships” he built there to a seedling that needed to be replanted to grow into a tree.
“Eventually, you’d have to move out to a smaller house with some of us, or we all, like, go to our own place, but we still invest in our relationships,” he said.
He has been trying to convince Mr. Abeysekera to move with him into an apartment in Manhattan.
Mr. Abeysekera’s response? “Dude, we already live together.”
