By Patricia Mikkelson, a resident of the Living Springs Log House since 2017
An Invitation to Those Who Have Been Looking for the Right Place
There is a particular kind of longing that many of us carry quietly — the longing to live alongside others who share our values. To wake up in a place where the food is plant-based, the land is tended with reverence, the animals are safe, and the people around you are also your people.
If you have carried that longing, this post is for you.
The Place
Tucked into the ancient Ozark hills of Madison County, Arkansas — one hour from the thriving Northwest Arkansas metropolis and twenty-five minutes from full amenities — sits 14.75 acres of spring-fed, medicinal-plant-rich, deeply alive land with a hybrid cypress log house, a 40×60 foot insulated metal building, a natural cave spring, land that was cleared years ago and could be made into pasture again, forested hillsides, and an established organic garden.
And it could become a home for a community.
You Could Start Right Now
You do not have to wait for a new building to be constructed or a master plan to be finalized. The cypress log house alone could house a small intentional community, with what is already here.
A primary bedroom and a smaller bedroom downstairs, each with its own full bathroom. Two additional oversized bedrooms upstairs, each with large walk-in closets and beautiful views over the property and the lake beyond. A fully separate walk-out basement suite with its own entrance, its own heating and cooling, its own bathroom, and a large open room with rough plumbing already in place for a future kitchen. (Why do I call it a suite and not an apartment? A home without a full kitchen is called a suite. This one has hookups that could be wired for a kitchen with some work, so it could become an apartment.)
And two additional rooms in the suite that, with the installation of windows, could become private bedrooms for additional community members.
That is potentially six to eight people living together under one roof — sharing meals in the spacious dining room, tending the garden, caring for rescued animals, hosting retreat guests, and building something real and lasting together.
The log house is well suited to serve as a common house — the beating heart of a larger community — with generous shared spaces for cooking, eating, gathering, and living, while still offering each member a private sanctuary of their own.
A small, intentional, values-aligned vegan community could begin here. Now. With what is already here.
Room to Grow
As the community grows, the land grows with it.
The 40×60 foot insulated metal building is one of the most exciting features of this property for community builders. With its 17-foot peak, concrete floor and stem walls, existing 240V electrical service, a bathroom with running water from a gravity-fed hose from the cistern, wood stove, and RV-sized automatic garage door, it is a blank canvas with many possibilities. (The pump doesn’t work, so a new owner would want to repair or replace it.)
Envision the upper portion converted into a loft with private living quarters for additional community members. The ground floor becomes the community’s shared enterprise space — a commercial kitchen producing plant-based food for the community and for sale, a craft or repair workshop, a seed library, a small vegan bakery or café, an art studio, a healing arts center. Living above, working below — a time-honored and sustainable model of community life.
Beyond the metal building, a large area on the property which is not forested could work well for an entirely new structure purpose-built for community living, after checking with the county. A co-housing building with private units and shared common spaces. A cluster of small cabins nestled into the hillside. A straw bale or cob building rising organically from the Ozark earth. Much of the infrastructure is in place. The spring has kept the cisterns supplied. The vision is yours to shape.
What This Community Could Look Like
Every intentional community finds its own form. But here are some of the possibilities this land holds:
A Vegan Co-Housing Community Private living spaces in the log house and metal building loft, shared meals and common spaces, a community garden and food forest tended together, rescued animals cared for collectively, and a shared commitment to plant-based living as the foundation of daily life.
A Working Community with a Shared Enterprise A community organized around a shared vegan business — a plant-based food production operation, an herbal medicine practice, a retreat hosting business, a permaculture education center, or some combination of all of these. The land and buildings support both the living and the working.
A Healing and Sanctuary Community A small residential community whose shared purpose is hosting others — offering retreat space, healing programs, and sanctuary for both humans and animals. Community members live on the land, tend it together, and offer its gifts to the wider world.
A Multigenerational Vegan Homestead Families and individuals of different ages sharing land, resources, and daily life — growing food together, raising children together, aging together — rooted in a shared commitment to compassionate, plant-based living.
The Land Supports All of It
A cave spring has kept the cisterns supplied for nine years, except when a hose was left running or there were mechanical problems at the spring. An established organic garden is already producing. Forty-plus medicinal and pollinator plants are already thriving. About sixty percent of the land is gardens, lawn, and land that was cleared years ago; that cleared land has grown up over the past nine years and could be made into pasture again. Forty percent is forested hillside offering shade, beauty, and habitat.
The Ozark hills have been home to intentional communities and back-to-the-landers since the 1970s. This region has long attracted people seeking a more deliberate relationship with the land, with food, and with one another. A vegan intentional community here might feel less like an experiment and more like a homecoming.
The Vision
Imagine waking up after a rain to the sound of rushing water in the wet weather creek fed by the spring moving through the hillside. See yourself walking out to a garden already heavy with food. Sharing breakfast with people who chose this life on purpose. Tending rescued animals in the morning light. Welcoming retreat guests in the afternoon. Sitting together in the evening on the porch of a cypress log house that, with care, can last a long time.
Imagine children growing up here — knowing where their food comes from and why it matters. Knowing that the animals around them are safe and loved. Knowing that the land beneath their feet is being healed, not harmed.
Imagine growing old here, surrounded by community, rooted in place, useful to the end.
This is not a fantasy. The bones are already here. The water is already flowing. The garden is already growing. The land is already alive and waiting.
What’s missing now is the person with the vision. Could that be you?
This article was written by Patricia Mikkelson, who has lived at the Living Springs Log House since 2017, together with Claude.ai, an AI assistant made by Anthropic. Patricia brought her long dream of a vegan community on this land and her knowledge of every corner of it, and Claude helped write the article. Patricia is a friend of Barbara Hulley, the owner of the Living Springs Log House.
