Barra Homestead

The Good Life Center's homestead project in East Corinth, VT

barra_by_matt_bucy_2005.jpg
(photo by Matt Boucy copyleft 2005)

What is it?

"Our center, located in East Corinth, Vermont, is an historic 43-acre homestead bordering the Waits River, established by Guy and Laura Waterman. For 27 years the Watermans lived simply and beautifully on the land they called “Barra,” named after the Scottish Island from which Guy’s ancestors hailed. Not needing the ecological footprint tool, they intuitively chose a sustainable lifestyle. A mature sugarbush, organic gardens, orchards and berry patches provided much of their food. They lived in a small, off the grid home built exclusively with hand tools and constructed a three-season log cabin for guests. They carried their water from a nearby spring and cut all of their firewood by hand. They voluntarily chose to live on a small income so that their time would be free to pursue their passions: mountaineering, homesteading, and writing. Books they wrote at Barra include “Wilderness Ethics,” “Forest and Crag,” “Yankee Rock and Ice,” “Backwoods Ethics” and “A Fine Kind of Madness.”

After Guy’s death several years ago, Laura moved into the small village of East Corinth and the land was given to The Good Life Center (the organization that manages the last homestead of the late Helen and Scott Nearing). They put the land in trust to conserve it in perpetuity and put out the call for long-term stewards to live at Barra. We responded to that call and discovered an astounding resonance with the land, Laura, and The Good Life Center. We are honored to have been given the opportunity to carry on the Waterman’s tradition of living lightly on the land.... "

--from the former www.globallivingproject.org website

Barra/Good Life Center History

In the mid 1990s, Laura and Guy Waterman of East Corinth, Vermont, homesteaders on 27 acres of land that they called Barra, expressed their intent to leave their homestead as a property gift to The Good Life Center at some future time in their lives. As part of their legacy of responsible land use and conservation, they partially funded the purchase of an adjoining 15.9 acre parcel (for a total acreage of 42.9 acres) envisioning that The Good Life Center would own both for the purposes of proper stewardship and conservation.

Current Status

Guy Waterman died in February of 2000 and Laura moved off their homestead. At that time The Good Life Center began actively working with Laura to secure short-term care-taking of Barra and making arrangements for long-term stewardship. The Good Life Center accepted the property gift from the Watermans and acquired the adjoining property during the fall of 2001.

Goals of the Project

The homestead in Vermont is being administered as a land trust demonstrating an example of good land stewardship. It is land to be held in trust by The Good Life Center, made available through a lease to prospective and qualified homesteaders to practice an experimental and alternative way of life lived close to the land consistent with the responsibilities of good stewardship. As a land and cultural conservation project, The Good Life Center's goals for Barra are:

  • environmental, protecting the integrity of the land and its natural resources;
  • social, making it available to individuals and/or organizations for a simple and environmentally sound life of homesteading and related activities;
  • and economic, keeping the property available and affordable to future generations for similar purposes.

Facilities

The Homestead includes a cabin that is 30 feet by 16 feet, divided into a living space, a small bedroom, and small wash-up room. There is loft for storage and a basement. The porch (10 x 12) and the woodshed (18 x 24) are attached to the house. A shelter is presently used for storage. A hand-hewn log guesthouse has bunk sleeping space for six. The outhouse is located up hill from the cabin. A small orchard is to the west of the cabin, and sixteen high-bush blueberry bushes are downhill from the orchard. The vegetable garden, an area of 200 x 70 feet, is located on a relatively flat piece of ground about fifty paces downhill from the cabin. An eight-foot fence to keep out deer encloses it. Within the garden are contained the permanent crops of raspberries, asparagus, rhubarb, strawberries, and a few herbs. Flowerbeds are located on the slope between the house and the garden. The hardwood forest rises up steeply behind the cabin. The bulk of the woods are on the other side of the garden, another hillside of sugar maples, red oak, white ash, hop hornbeam, beech, birch and a scattering of softwoods. The sugar shed is located in the midst of the woods, about a ten-minute walk from the cabin. The water source is a stream and underground springs located a short distance from the garden.

Resident Homesteaders

Rowan Sherwood is trained as a speech-language pathologist. She earned a B.S. from Ithaca College and has worked extensively in education and human services. In 1998 she shifted careers to devote her life energy to the healing of Earth and the empowerment of people to make sustainable choices in their lives.