was the name of the home where Brenda Laurel and Rob Tow lived for decades, and where their three children, Hilary Laurel Hulteen, Suzanne Elise Tow, and Brooke Laurel Hulteen, grew up together, in the Santa Cruz mountains above the Silicon Valley region of the San Francisco bay.

When these five people came to live together in the house nestled in the trees and the fog, it was clear that there were entirely too many last names to put on the sign out on the road; so everyone thought of names for the house, and a long list was compiled over several weeks on the whiteboard in the kitchen, and finally a vote was held to select one. “Locus Voci” was the winner; it means “Place of Voices”. It was very appropriate for the boisterous home where the three girls grew up. In time the house quieted, and we listened more to the voices of owl, crow, water, windchimes, and rain.

Once the name was selected, brightly colored signs were painted to put out on the one-lane road that wound through the forest to the house; and the following week a curious thing happened: the weekly trash was not picked up. When the hauling company was called, they said: “oh, yeah, a new family moved in there… that Italian Vochy family… they don’t have a contract with us!”

Then, in August of 2020, the CZU Lightning Complex came up the Santa Cruz mountains. We evacuated, and slept for two weeks on the floor of Rob’s office in Mountain View. By the end of those two weeks, the decision had made itself; we would not return.

Where we live now is Nova Lux.