Landwell

In 2016, a group of social entrepreneurs and change agents came together with a vision to co-create and live their place-based values. They would blend ecological restoration with eco-farming and create cooperative housing from which to tend community cultivation and nature-based education.  The primary challenge—as is all too common—was the extraordinary cost of real estate, particularly for real estate with meaningful acreage and a small village of homes and buildings.  Undeterred, the group found just such a place (or perhaps the place found them) and secured a social investment loan to purchase 22 acres with a handful of modest houses in Sebastopol, CA and began the journey of bringing their vision to life.  Now eight years on, through creativity and perseverance, the vision has blossomed into  LANDWELL , and the time has come to return and pass-on the original seed lending.  This inflection point offers the opportunity to secure Landwell's vision and  impact  for generations to come.

Listening to the land and looking closely at geography and history of the landscape suggests that Landwell's emergence is a natural expression of a numinous place. Numinous, not in the sense of divinity or religion, but as the felt presence of life's " shimmer ," with multispecies knots (including humans) and their cascading interdependencies across time.

All of the natural and cultural elements of this unique landscape coalesce into a living, numinous place in need of permanent protection. The patterns and themes of convergence, edges, traveling and navigating, physical and spiritual nourishment, and water are entwined with this land and the place-based work of the  Innovative Learning and Living Institute (ILALI) , which is poised to establish a physical home at Landwell. It is the work of ILALI and the stewardship of the Landwell residents that aligns this protection effort with Living Lands Trust. Living Lands recognizes that it is not enough to "save" land, we must also create opportunities for people live and work in harmony with nature to build community resiliency and foster place-based enterprises that contribute to the regional economy. Landwell exemplifies this mission.

We have raised $2.16 million of the $4.5 million needed to permanently remove this unique place from the speculative market, assure the long-term benefits of agroecology and riparian restoration, establish a permanent affordable housing cooperative, and create a home for the Innovative Learning & Living Institute (ILALI).  Explore details of the opportunity  HERE  and/or contact Living Lands Trust Executive Director, David Outman, at david@livinglandstrust.org to learn more and to make a contribution to this unique initiative—with humility and gratitude!