Serenbe Stories

How did Steve Nygren get people to move to Serenbe when there was nothing here but trees and an idea? After investors balked at his idea and declined, he knew it was up to him to show people what Serenbe would be. Steve worked with Robert Rausch and Ryan Gainey to develop an image box with drawings, imaginations and descriptions of what he was building in Chattahoochee Hills.

Questions Answered

Why did the first residents choose to move to Serenbe?

How did Steve Nygren show future residents what his vision was for Serenbe?

What is Les Dames d'Escoffier's connection to Serenbe?

How did Steve Nygren finance the first homes built in Serenbe?

Who were Serenbe's residents at the beginning?

What were the first "small homes" in Serenbe?

How did Serenbe succeed through the 2008 recession?

Why did Steve Nygren use his own funds to build commercial centers in Serenbe's first neighborhoods?

What does Steve Nygren want to build next in Serenbe?

How does Europe's treatment of seniors differ from America's?

People + Organizations Mentioned

Lew Oliver

Little Acorn Learning Center

One Mado

Peloton

Pro Bike Repair

Proper Hair

Resource Serenbe

Serenbe Yoga

Spa at Serenbe

Yumiko Sushi

AJ Downing

Angie Mosier

Chatt Hills Gallery

Forage & Flower Botanical Design Studio

Gainey Hall Gallery

General Store at Serenbe

Gym at Serenbe

Halsa Restaurant

Hills & Hamlets Bookshop

Les Dames d’Escoffier

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. 

In this episode, Steve Nygren talks about how he took his successful hospitality career and applied it to building a community from scratch. They were creating places through hospitality, and Steve knew when building Serenbe that they needed to have a place for people to gather around food. That first place was the Blue Eyed Daisy Bakeshop.

Questions Answered

What is placemaking?

How does scale and massing in architecture contribute to the authentic feel of a place?

What is a condition sheet?

What is a thornbird transect?

How does Serenbe differ from typical New Urbanism?

Why did Steve Nygren design the streets after omegas?

Why does traditional Southern architecture incorporate porches?

How do porches in Serenbe encourage community engagement?

How can a mail house add to a sense of place?

Where are all the trash cans and mail boxes in Serenbe?

Why don't you see front lawns in Serenbe?

Where can you eat in Serenbe (besides the restaurants)?

What are Serenbe's home design guidelines?

People + Organizations Mentioned

Phipps Plaza

Proper Hair

Serenbe Planning & Design

Texas A&M University

The Well-Placed Weed

The Farmhouse Restaurant

Lord & Taylor

Inn at Serenbe

Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects

Merrill Lynch

PBS

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. 

Steve Nygren dives into how to actually begin the build process when you're starting from nothing. He knew he had to save his backyard and had worked with his neighbors to go to the state to make the laws work for Chattahoochee Hills, but he didn't yet know he was going to create the Serenbe community. That realization was never a moment, but rather over a gradual course of time.

Questions Answered

How do you build a neighborhood from scratch?

If not you, who? If not now, when?

When did Steve Nygren realize he was actually going to build a neighborhood to save his land?

How did Phill Tabb get involved in Serenbe?

Did Steve get to include everything he wanted to in Serenbe?

Why were granite curbs so difficult to get?

What goes into putting something like power into a new community?

How do we reduce our energy demands so we're not using up our resources?

How does EarthCraft differ from LEED certification?

What is a Gabion bridge?

Why do third-world countries have more environmentally-friendly stormwater routing than the United States?

Where does stormwater go?

People + Organizations Mentioned

Farmers Almanac

Proctor Creek

Robert Marvin

Dr. Phillip Tabb

Southeastern Engineering, Inc

Southface

USA Today

Atlanta BeltLine

Biophilic Leadership Summit

Blue Eyed Daisy Bakeshop

Bosch

Bruce Ferguson

EarthCraft Certification

Chad Epple

Teresa Epple

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. 

After Steve Nygren brought small and large land owners in Chattahoochee Hills on board his development plan, it was time to take the project to the state. Three state foundations and a few private citizens had pledged money to invest in the project, and Governor Barnes was ready to push legislation through to allow Chattahoochee Hill Country to change land rights in the region. When Barnes didn't get re-elected, most of these investments disappeared. One person stayed in, and that money was used to buy the first TDRs from two land owners. 

This was only the beginning of Steve’s journey through state government bureaucracy. Each time he wanted to incorporate an environmentally-friendly option, be it for wastewater treatment or putting in roads, he encountered pushback from the various state departments that oversee them. Steve continued to ask questions and pursue what he knew to be right.

Questions Answered

What were the steps you had to take to start building Serenbe?

What are land rights?

How do transfer development rights work?

What is the most photographed place in Serenbe?

Why are chain link fences always around conventional waste water treatment facilities?

Why should we choose to build in a new way?

How is balanced development possible?

Why are government departments so siloed?

Why does Serenbe have unique streetlamps?

People + Organizations Mentioned

Michael Ogden

Reed Hilderbrand

Robert Rausch

Serenbe Development

Turner Foundation

UGA Law Department

Woodruff Foundation

Chattahoochee Hills

Chattahoochee Hill Country Conservancy

Environmental Protection Division

Georgia Association of County Commissioners

Governor Roy Barnes

The Hill Restaurant

Mado

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. 

Steve Nygren knew he had to protect the land that was his backyard, but he didn't yet know what that looked like. Always the hospitality man, Steve brought his neighbors together over dinners and homemade desserts to create the Chattahoochee Hill Country Alliance, which started the process of determining what everyone wanted and what their best option was for preservation and development. 

Questions Answered

What was going on globally, nationally in 2000?

When you knew you were going to build Serenbe, what kind of rules did you have to change?

How did you implement the 70-30 Development Rule?

How did you approve rezoning, development and preservation plans when Fulton County's approval departments were all separate and didn't make determinations based on other departments' needs?

What was the Public Works Department against the Chatt Hills development plan?

How does this environmentally-friendly way of developing allow for more housing than traditional sprawl division?

What does clustered development mean for the future?

Why was it important to incorporate Transfer Development Rights? How do they work?

People + Organizations Mentioned

Living Machines

Microsoft

Nature Conservancy

Quinn Nygren

South Fulton Parkway

Phill Tabb

John Todd

Toyota Prius

Ted Turner

University of Georgia 

Atlanta Public Works Department

Charles, Prince of Wales

Chattahoochee Hill Country Alliance

Environmental Council of the States

Jane Fonda 

Fulton County Economic Development

Fulton County Planning Department

Georgia Conservancy

Al Gore

iPhone

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. 

Monica Olsen and Steve Nygren go into detail about the pivotal moment in Steve and Serenbe’s beginning. Steve and his daughter, Garnie, came upon a bulldozer taking out trees while they were running trails on their 300 acres. Steve worried about urban sprawl in their paradise and immediately made calls to land owners in Chattahoochee Hills, asking them to call if they ever decided to sell. The three largest parcels that touched the Nygren farmhouse had to sell for different reasons, and in 5 weeks, Steve had another 600 acres under contract. 

Steve realized he wasn’t thinking large enough; that he’d have to affect legislation. He then brought 500 Chattahoochee Hill Country landowners together to change the zoning, thus changing how this area would be developed.

Questions Answered

What is the pivotal moment that changed Steve Nygren’s trajectory?

How many acres did Steve have before he saw the bulldozer?

Why did seeing a bulldozer make make you think of a housing development and urban sprawl?

How did opening a restaurant in Roswell influence your decision to buy additional land?

When you were purchasing land in Chattahoochee Hills, did you know what you were going to do with it the whole time?

Are people’s preconceived notions about how to development part of the problem?

Why do you think people weren’t developing in an environmentally-friendly way (like Serenbe)?

What are some of the global policies developers weren’t thinking about?

People + Organizations Mentioned

Peachtree Road Race

Prairie Crossing

President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Robert Davis

Seaside

TIME Magazine

Urban Land Institute

Victoria Ranney

The White House Council on the Environment

Amory Lovins

Centers for Disease Control & Prevention

Environmental Protection Division

Garnie Nygren

George Ranney, Jr.

Georgia Institute of Technology

Jim Durrett

Main Street America

O’Hare International Airport

Paul Hawken

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. 

Sometimes the groove we’re in is actually a rut. That’s how Steve Nygren describes his feelings when he decided to step off the corporate treadmill and make the move to Chattahoochee Hill Country. Before Serenbe’s homes, shops, restaurants and events, there was the discovery of open, rolling hills and a 1904 farmhouse. In this episode, Steve Nygren shares about his family’s life in Atlanta and the value shift that brought them to the country full time. Steve also discusses opening a bed & breakfast, now known as The Inn at Serenbe, during the 1996 Olympics.

Questions Answered

What did a typical day, week, or month look like for you and your family living in the heart of the city in Atlanta, Georgia?

What made you move to Serenbe full time?

What are your days like in Serenbe?

What influenced you to turn the farmhouse into a bed and breakfast?

What did Richard Louv’s book “Last Child In The Woods” mean to you?

People + Organizations Mentioned

National League of Cities

Natural Leaders Program

Nature Connection

“The Nature Principle”

The New York Times

Piedmont Park

Pleasant Peasant Group

Richard Louv

Ryan Gainey

Stouffer’s Food Corporation

Symphony Hall

1996 Atlanta Olympics

Ansley Park

Atlanta Botanical Garden

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Bouckaert Farms

Georgia Preservation Newsletter, Historic Register

High Museum

Keith Summerour

Marie Nygren

Margaret Lupo

Mary Mac’s Tea Room

Midtown Alliance

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. 

Many people wonder “What is Serenbe?” Host Monica Olsen introduces Serenbe founder, developer and CEO Steve Nygren as they sit down to talk about why he created Serenbe, and what Serenbe is today.

Interview took place September 2019.

Questions Answered

What is Serenbe?

What else is here other than people and trees?

Who lives here?

What drove you to build Serenbe?

What should we know about Serenbe’s neighborhoods?

What is a well-lived life?

What can I do here?

People + Organizations Mentioned

Ray C. Anderson

Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport

Audubon Society

Interface

The White House Council on the Environment

Rocky Mountain Institute

LEED

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. 

Welcome to Serenbe Stories, a podcast chronicling life in the leading wellness community. Hosted by Monica Olsen, we are thrilled to share this 12 episode season capturing the story of Serenbe, directly from the founder, Steve Nygren.

We had this seed of an idea over a year ago and over the past 6 months, we have taken this journey of recording and producing our very first podcast in-house and are excited to invite you along.

We're so proud of the team for taking on this challenge of bringing Steve's story to you on this platform. And you'll hear us learning along the way too, episode by episode.

The first episode of Serenbe Stories will launch Monday, September 9th and a new one will be released every following Monday. Be sure to subscribe and listen on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher and anywhere you can listen to podcasts.

You will find all episodes, show notes and further podcast details at www.serenbestories.com.

We can't wait to share our stories. 

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.