Earthaven Ecovillage Caring for people and Earth by learning, living, and demonstrating a holistic, sustainable culture

Earthaven is an aspiring ecovillage founded in 1994 on 329 acres in the mountain forests of Western North Carolina, about 50 minutes from Asheville. We are spiritually diverse and value sustainable ecological systems, permaculture design, elegant simplicity, right livelihood, and healthy social relations. We have both vegetarians and omnivores, and some of us raise livestock for food. We hope to become empowered, responsible, ecologically literate citizens who model bioregionally appropriate culture for our time and place.

We intend to become a village of at least 150. We use a modified form of the N Street Consensus Method for decision making, and have paid for and own title to our land. We have a homeowners’ association to manage our common lands, with housing coops and LLCs owning our residential areas. As of 2021, we have 70 adult residents. We have built roads and bridges, community buildings, members’ homes, multi-household residences, gardens, constructed wetlands, and off-grid power and water systems.

We are developing a small village-scale economy. Some of us work in small, onsite businesses or nonprofits, including Useful Plants Nursery; Culture’s Edge, an educational nonprofit and its School of Integrated Living (SOIL). Some of us offer services such as carpentry and home construction, consulting, house cleaning, home care, child care, and healing arts. Others telecommute or work in town.

To further Earthaven’s mission as a learning community dedicated to sharing our resources with the public, the School of Integrated Living offers in-person and online workshops and tours.  We welcome students and other learning groups, and support homeschool parents of children at Earthaven and nearby. We are seeking hardworking, entrepreneurial people, including but not  limited to organic growers and farmers; people with solar power, electrical, plumbing, and mechanical skills; and healers, artists, and families with children.