Serenbe Stories

You might not see the connection between biophilic design and national security, but today's guest outlines how communities like Serenbe are imperative in our global defense strategy. We're excited for you to hear Monica Olsen and Steve Nygren's conversation with Colonel Mark "Puck" Mykleby.

Puck talks about meeting Phyllis Bleiweis and coming to Serenbe, where he bonded with Steve Nygren over biophilia and pushed for the establishment of the Biophilic Institute. Puck also talks about the economics of sustainability and how his company, Long Haul Capital Group, is putting dollars toward propelling walkable communities. As he says, our smart growth at home can become our smart power abroad.

Definitions, People + Organizations Mentioned

Serenbe Fellows

Phyllis Bleiweis

Congress for New Urbanism 

Special Operations Command at the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Admiral Michael Glenn Mullen 

Captain Wayne Porter - The National Strategic Narrative

Congresswoman Jane Harman 

National Security Act of 1947 

Department of Defense

Central Intelligence Agency

George Frost Kennan

Biophilic Institute

Alexis de Tocqueville 

The New Grand Strategy

Charles Darwin's Survival of the Fittess

The New America Foundation 

Case Western Reserve University 

The New Grand Strategy 

Adam Smith

Long Haul Capital Group

Oregon Museum of Science & Industry 

Water in Flint, Michigan

Rodale Institute's SE Research Center

Children & Nature Network

David W. Orr

Mayor Bill Peduto 

Greta Thunberg TIME's Person of the Year 2019

The new book, Start In Your Own Backyard, is out and available for ordering. 

Step off the treadmill of life and book a stay at the Inn at Serenbe. Use code Serenbe Stories when you book online or over the phone and receive 10% off your stay!

Learn more about Serenbe and see our Events Calendar. Order your copy of Start In Your Own Backyard: Transforming Where You Live with Radical Common Sense by Serenbe founder Steve Nygren. 

On today's episode we're talking with Chef Nicolas Bour, who was at The Farmhouse during its early years nearly a decade ago before opening the famed Iris restaurant in Atlanta. He has worked in restaurants across the country, and even cooked for President Barack Obama for the first inaugural gala. Chef Nic is now back at Serenbe as the Executive Chef and VP of food and beverage over all Serenbe restaurants. We'll talk about his journey back to Serenbe, his deep relationship and passion for fresh food, sourcing and local farms and the future of culinary in Chattahoochee Hills.

Definitions, People + Organizations Mentioned

InterContinental Hotels

Willard Hotel

Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have A Dream Speech

Carla Bruni

Nicolas Sarkozy

France

Elizabeth on 37th

Plaza Hotel

Loews Coronado Bay

Halsa

Serenbe Farms

Sharko Farms

Decimal Place Farm

Rodale Institute

Robert de Niro

President Barack Obama

Michelle Obama

Humphrey's (San Diego)

Aulani Resort (Hawaii)

Chef Masaharu Morimoto

Iron Chef

The Hill Restaurant

Iris

Garnie Nygren

Woodward Academy

Angie Mosier

LEED

Chattahoochee Hills

John Graham

Pepper Bullock 

The new book, Start In Your Own Backyard, is out and available for ordering. 

Step off the treadmill of life and book a stay at the Inn at Serenbe. Use code Serenbe Stories when you book online or over the phone and receive 10% off your stay!

Learn more about Serenbe and see our Events Calendar. Order your copy of Start In Your Own Backyard: Transforming Where You Live with Radical Common Sense by Serenbe founder Steve Nygren. 

Today we're talking to Serenbe's master land planner, Dr. Phillip Tabb. Phill discusses sacred geometry and the spiritual and symbolic side of planning and architecture. He also reminisces about the all-nighter he pulled working on the Serenbe charrette - where the omega shape for the neighborhoods took hold - and the weekend he, The Nygrens, and many other friends came together to build Serenbe's stone labyrinth.

Definitions, People + Organizations Mentioned 

Transect-  Used by Biologists and ecologists to study symbiotic elements  in habitats where specific plants and animals flourish.

Photovoltaic (PV) System- A system composed of one or more solar panels combined with an inverter and other electrical and mechanical hardware that use energy from the sun to generate electricity.

Bill Browning

Pleasant Peasant

Rocky Mountain Institute

Robert Marvin

Keith Critchlow

Robert Lawlor

Charles Brewer

Laura Heery

Andrés Duany

Dr. Jorge Venegas

Chartres Cathedral

Michelangelo

Chattahoochee Hills

Southeastern Engineering

Gainey Hall Gallery

Nygren Placemaking

Biophilic Institute

Seaside

EarthCraft

Hannah Solar

Tesla

Routledge Publishing

Tim Beatley

Biophilic Cities

1973 Oil Embargo

Department of Energy demonstration grant

1983 Solar Energy Tax Credit

Fibonacci’s Kite

The new book, Start In Your Own Backyard, is out and available for ordering. 

Step off the treadmill of life and book a stay at the Inn at Serenbe. Use code Serenbe Stories when you book online or over the phone and receive 10% off your stay!

Learn more about Serenbe and see our Events Calendar. Order your copy of Start In Your Own Backyard: Transforming Where You Live with Radical Common Sense by Serenbe founder Steve Nygren. 

Today's episode features a incredible conversation with John Lanier about turning fear into passion for action, why we have to stop the "take, make and waste" economic model, and the regenerative highway making waves in south Georgia.

We also talk about his new book, the reissued "Mid Course Correction" that shares the impact and legacy of his grandfather, Ray Anderson, founder of the sustainable carpet tile company Interface.

John shares how Paul Hawken's words drove Ray to tears by showing him the dark side of his industry...how businesses and industry are causing the vast amount of environmental degradation we see across the world AND that those same businesses are ALSO able to solve those environmental problems.

Finally, John tells the story of how a simple customer question changed his grandfather, who then changed his company, and how that created a ripple effect on the environment and on Serenbe.

Definitions, People + Organizations Mentioned

Take, Make & Waste Model

A charrette is an intensive planning session where citizens, designers and others collaborate on a vision for development. It provides a forum for ideas and offers the unique advantage of giving immediate feedback to the designers. More importantly, it allows everyone who participates to be a mutual author of the plan.

Georgia Tech

Mary Anne Lanier

Harriet Langford & Phil Langford

The Ray Highway

Janine Benyus

Biomimicry Institute

Andrew Winston

Kari Pei

Project Drawdown

Ray Day

Fortune 100 Company

LEED

Biomimicry

Tomorrow's Child poem

Ray C. Anderson

Southface

Paul Hawken's The Ecology of Commerce

Tomorrow's Child

Patagonia

Inn at Serenbe

Rocky Mountain Institute

The new book, Start In Your Own Backyard, is out and available for ordering. 

Step off the treadmill of life and book a stay at the Inn at Serenbe. Use code Serenbe Stories when you book online or over the phone and receive 10% off your stay!

Learn more about Serenbe and see our Events Calendar. Order your copy of Start In Your Own Backyard: Transforming Where You Live with Radical Common Sense by Serenbe founder Steve Nygren. 

The Nygrens intuitively realized that nature was having a positive impact on their children, but reading Richard Louv's book Last Child in the Woods validated their decision to make the permanent move to Chattahoochee Hills. 

Richard wants people to connect with nature, and he believes a big part of that is connecting with animals. When he'd written Last Child in the Woods, he was able to find about 60 studies during his research that helped inform his writing. That information plus another ~1,000 studies, exists in a digital library on the C&NN website. When looking at those studies though, there's not much information about wild animals and their impact on our psyche. Our ancestors knew that they helped shape us and that we shaped them. We told stories about them around campfires in which we found meaning. 

His new book, Our Wild Calling, is to look at that and relate the stories he's collected about life-changing encounters and ongoing relationships with companion animals and how it gives life more meaning. This will take an important role in the future of the C&NN movement. Children feel the meaning of wild animal encounters, but it can be rediscovered.

Definitions, People + Organizations Mentioned

Nature-Deficit Disorder: The importance of children's and adults' exposure to nature for their health, and on the need for environmental protection and preservation for greater access to nature and the health of the Earth.

Nature-Rich: For a city to be wealthy in nature and an engine of bio-diversity, and to have children and families connected to nature.

I and Thou: Buber's main proposition is that we may address existence in two ways:

1. 
   That of the "I" toward an "It," toward an object that is separate in itself, which we either use or experience
   
   
2. 
   That of the "I" toward "Thou," in which we move into existence in a relationship without bounds. One of the major themes of the book is that human life finds its meaningfulness in relationships.
   
   

National League of Cities

Robin Moore

Audubon Society

Stephen Hawking

Martin Buber

Last Child In The Woods

Vitamin N

Nature Principle

Our Wild Calling

America II

Children & Nature Network

The new book, Start In Your Own Backyard, is out and available for ordering. 

Step off the treadmill of life and book a stay at the Inn at Serenbe. Use code Serenbe Stories when you book online or over the phone and receive 10% off your stay!

Learn more about Serenbe and see our Events Calendar. Order your copy of Start In Your Own Backyard: Transforming Where You Live with Radical Common Sense by Serenbe founder Steve Nygren. 

Thanks for listening to our first season, where host Monica Olsen and Serenbe Founder Steve Nygren went back to the beginning, in his life and career and in Serenbe's history, to tell the in-depth story about how this community just outside of Atlanta came to be.

If you haven't listened yet, now is the time to catch up on all the episodes of Season 1. We are kicking off Season 2 on Monday, January 27th with 14 brand new episodes. You'll hear from many of the people that were integral to Serenbe's creation and development and hear THEIR Serenbe stories.

We talk with John Lanier, the Executive Director of The Ray C. Anderson Foundation about how integral his grandfather was to Steve's vision.

You'll hear from Richard Louv, bestselling author of Last Child in the Woods, Tom Reed, the Mayor of Chattahoochee Hills, the city that Serenbe sits within, and Dennis Creech, founder of Southface.

We'll also have Phill Tabb on, who is Serenbe's site planner, professor and architect, Robert Rausch who Steve met via Ryan Gainey in Atlanta, Col. Mark "Puck" Mykelby, who was a Serenbe Fellow and inspired Steve to create the Biophilic Institute, as well as many more people.

Join us for Season 2 on January 27th, and please download and subscribe.

The new book, Start In Your Own Backyard, is out and available for ordering. 

Step off the treadmill of life and book a stay at the Inn at Serenbe. Use code Serenbe Stories when you book online or over the phone and receive 10% off your stay!

Learn more about Serenbe and see our Events Calendar. Order your copy of Start In Your Own Backyard: Transforming Where You Live with Radical Common Sense by Serenbe founder Steve Nygren. 

Serenbe’s design is based around Biophilia - the idea that humans have an innate tendency to seek connections with nature - and in the final episode of season 1, Steve Nygren talks about finding his purpose in building this utopia for his grandchildren and all the residents that have chosen to spend their lives here.

The biophilic principles are meant to provide personal wellbeing, community engagement, national security and global balance. Those 12 principles are: Land Use, Education, Food Systems, Economic Development, Tax Base, Transportation, Energy, Structures, Waste Management, Community Engagement, Green Infrastructure and Water.

Questions Answered

What is Biophilia?

What are the Biophilic Principles and why are they important at every level of development and government?

What is the mission of the Biophilic Institute?

Why doesn’t Steve Nygren plan to build more “Serenbe’s?”

What is the future of Serenbe?

People + Organizations Mentioned

Rodale Institute

Serenbe Development

Steve Cover

The Grand Strategy

Terrapin Bright Green

Tim Beatley

Bill Browning

Biophilia at Scale

Biophilic Cities

Chattahoochee NOW

Mark “Puck” Mykleby

Nygren Placemaking

Riverlands Project

The new book, Start In Your Own Backyard, is out and available for ordering. 

Step off the treadmill of life and book a stay at the Inn at Serenbe. Use code Serenbe Stories when you book online or over the phone and receive 10% off your stay!

Learn more about Serenbe and see our Events Calendar. Order your copy of Start In Your Own Backyard: Transforming Where You Live with Radical Common Sense by Serenbe founder Steve Nygren. 

Before there was a community full of people and families, there was just "the farm" and the Nygren's. Garnie, Kara and Quinn Nygren join Steve Nygren to talk about what it was like to grow up in the woods and to tell stories from their childhood. They talk about their first jobs at Serenbe, how it changed when people started moving in, and their journeys away and then back to Serenbe as adults.

Questions Answered

Who are Garnie, Kara and Quinn Nygren and what roles do they play at Serenbe?

What was it like to grow up in Serenbe before it was a full community?

What were Garnie, Kara and Quinn's first jobs at Serenbe?

What are all the jobs each of them has held?

How does Garnie Nygren remember the iconic "bulldozer moment?"

What brought each of the Nygren daughters back to Serenbe?

People + Organizations Mentioned

Camp Serenbe

Little Acorns

The Farmhouse

Woodward Academy

Cornell University

University of Colorado Boulder

Blue Eyed Daisy 

Serenbe Real Estate

USA Today

Biophilic Solutions

The new book, Start In Your Own Backyard, is out and available for ordering. 

Step off the treadmill of life and book a stay at the Inn at Serenbe. Use code Serenbe Stories when you book online or over the phone and receive 10% off your stay!

Learn more about Serenbe and see our Events Calendar. Order your copy of Start In Your Own Backyard: Transforming Where You Live with Radical Common Sense by Serenbe founder Steve Nygren. 

Not many people find their career path at 18, but as soon as Steve Nygren saw how the restaurant business worked he knew he was in the right place.

Questions Answered

How does a hospitality guy end up placemaking in the woods?
Why was Steve Nygren the right person to create a place like Serenbe?
How did Steve go from bus boy to maitre 'd in one summer? 
What brought Steve to Atlanta?
What was different about the Stouffer's Hotel in Atlanta?
What was Steve's Big Splash marketing campaign for the Atlanta hotel?
What is a "Fern Bar"?
How did the Pleasant Peasant change the restaurant scene?
What led to Pleasant Peasant first expanding?
How many Pleasant Peasant restaurants were there?

People + Organizations Mentioned

Mary Mac’s Tea Room

Mazza Gallerie

Merrill Lynch

Neiman Marcus

Nestle

Omni Hotel

Pennsylvania Development Authority

Phipps Plaza

Saks Fifth Avenue

Stan Topol

Tiffany’s

Ansley Park

Atlanta BeltLine

Atlanta Conventions & Visitor’s Bureau

Bob Amick

Central Atlanta Progress

Colony Square

Dan Sweat

Dick Dailey

Dick Myrick

Dogwood Festival

Emory University Hospital

Georgia Hospitality Association

Home Park

IBM

Lord & Taylor

Margaret Lupo

Margaret Mackenzie

The new book, Start In Your Own Backyard, is out and available for ordering. 

Step off the treadmill of life and book a stay at the Inn at Serenbe. Use code Serenbe Stories when you book online or over the phone and receive 10% off your stay!

Learn more about Serenbe and see our Events Calendar. Order your copy of Start In Your Own Backyard: Transforming Where You Live with Radical Common Sense by Serenbe founder Steve Nygren. 

What exactly is the Serenbe Institute for Art, Culture and the Environment and why did Steve Nygren start it? The first arts program, AIR Serenbe, an artist-in-residence program, kicked off the Institute, with big plans to fund a pottery studio. There was early success with the residency but no permanent home, artists stayed in resident’s extra bedrooms or garage apartments. Since then Serenbe partnered with Auburn University’s design build architecture program, Rural Studio, to build two dedicated artist cottages on the Art Farm at Serenbe. Since then, the Institute has grown, introducing Terminus Modern Ballet Theatre in 2017, a Serenbe Fellows program, Serenbe Film with more units and programming that bring all forms of art and environment programming to the community and visitors from around the globe.

Questions Answered

What is the Serenbe Institute for Art, Culture & the Environment?

Why was it important for Steve Nygren to honor the arts in a specific way at Serenbe?

How do Serenbe residents support the Serenbe Institute?

How did Steve Nygren get the idea to use transfer fees as a permanent source for arts funding at Serenbe?

What was the first arts program in Serenbe?

How did former Atlanta Ballet principals end up creating a company under the Serenbe Institute?

People + Organizations Mentioned

Serenbe Fellows

Shelton Stanfill

Mayor Shirley Franklin

South Fulton Area Initiative

Telluride Film Festival

Terminus Modern Ballet Theatre

Tom Swanston

Tom Reed

Tomlinson-Graham Group

Acton Academy

AIR Serenbe

Anis Mojgani

Art Farm at Serenbe

Art Over Dinner

Arthur Blank Foundation

Atlanta Ballet

The new book, Start In Your Own Backyard, is out and available for ordering. 

Step off the treadmill of life and book a stay at the Inn at Serenbe. Use code Serenbe Stories when you book online or over the phone and receive 10% off your stay!

Learn more about Serenbe and see our Events Calendar. Order your copy of Start In Your Own Backyard: Transforming Where You Live with Radical Common Sense by Serenbe founder Steve Nygren.