Golden Girls: Inside Modern Co-Living

Chip Conley is the founder and CEO of Modern Elder Academy, the world’s first midlife wisdom school. A hospitality entrepreneur and five-time best-selling author, Chip founded Joie de Vivre Hospitality at age 26 and grew it into the second-largest boutique hotel company in America. At age 52, he was recruited by Airbnb’s young founders to help them scale the company, serving as Head of Global Hospitality and Strategy for four years.

Chip is a three-time TED speaker and the New York Times bestselling author of Wisdom at Work: The Making of a Modern Elder and Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age.

In 2027 he co-founded MEA to help people in midlife find their own meaningful way to create fulfilling and exciting next chapters for themselves. Since then he has dedicated much of his life to reframing the concept of aging and helping people navigate midlife with renewed purpose and possibility.

Dana is a Tulsa-based entrepreneur exploring how housing can better support people as they age. Her emerging work focuses on solo aging, housing affordability, aging in place, and helping people make thoughtful decisions about where they want to live. She met Robin and Jeanne at MEA’s Golden Girls workshop before joining them for the Sage House shared-living pilot.

Robin is an MEA alumna from San Antonio. A self-described introvert who lived alone for 11 years, she began exploring alternatives to traditional continuing-care communities during the pandemic. Her interest led her to MEA’s first Golden Girls workshop and, later, the Sage House shared-living pilot.

Jeanne is a Denver-based MEA alumna and longtime independent solo resident. After attending MEA’s Golden Girls workshop, she volunteered to help test the shared-living model at Sage House. The experience changed her assumptions about communal living and showed her that independence, friendship, and a shared home can coexist.