An old chapel in Forest, Ohio — brought back to life as a garden, a quiet room, and a gathering place.

A glimpse of the garden

The garden grows three ways at once. Permaculture shows us how to design with nature — earth care, people care, fair share. Hugelkultur builds fertility from buried wood, mound beds that hold water and feed themselves. And the Vedic cycles keep us in rhythm with the sky — planting, tending, and harvesting by the chart and the seasons.

The chapel still has its old pipe organ and its stained glass. Every evening at seven we sit together in the quiet for a little while. Other nights there's singing — out loud, for the joy of it, never a performance. Groups are welcome to use the room for their own gatherings, given freely.

The oldest skills are the homemaking ones: cooking, growing, putting food by, painting, quilting, woodwork, fixing what's broken. We practice them here and pass them around — garden mornings, shared meals, workdays, and afternoons in the art studio. Start right where you are, with what you already have.

Sometimes a person just needs to step out of the rush. Come fall into the everyday cadence of garden, quiet, and shared work — for a day, a weekend, a week, or a season — then carry a little of that calm home. We host introductory Saturdays, weekends, weeklong stays, and monthlong caretaker residencies, year round.