ABOUT US
Our Origin
"Sustainable Settings began in 1997 in Woody Creek, Colorado, when founders Brook and Rose LeVan set out to explore a simple but profound question: How ought we to live on the Earth? What started as a small experiment became a nonprofit organization in 2001, and in 2003 the organization established its permanent home on the ranch it stewards today.
Brook and Rose did not begin as farmers. In the 1980s they were artists and university professors of ceramics and graphic design. Their work eventually led them beyond the studio and into deeper questions about the role of creativity in everyday life. A Fulbright fellowship in 1989 brought them to northern Ghana, where they studied the clay architecture of the Gurunsi people—communities whose homes, land, and culture express a seamless integration between daily life, ecology, and spirit.
Later research along China’s Yellow River exposed them to the growing degradation of soil, land, and traditional lifeways. These experiences inspired them to create Sustainable Settings: a living laboratory dedicated to researching, demonstrating, and teaching how agrarian human settlements can thrive by working with nature’s intelligence through whole-systems thinking.
Today the ranch continues that mission—healing land, nourishing community, and exploring what it truly means to live well on Earth."
“Over the past 7 months at Sustainable Settings I learned how to build healthy soil, grow organic food, raise livestock, kill and butcher an animal with humility and respect, can and preserve food, market our produce, drive a tractor, use power tools, and even write a grant. But the most important thing you taught me was how to truly find the beauty and humor in everything and in every act. You helped me find a sense of independence and self-reliance. You helped me discover what I am truly capable of.
There were days at Sustainable Settings where we felt completely immortal. And days where the weight of the world felt heavy enough to demand that I kneel down and cry. But there was a predominant understanding of the brevity of life and a call to arms to embrace its beauty in everything we do and to act. Thank you for teaching me to think systemically. Thank you for showing me how to live, how to love, the importance of community for our selves and for improving the world, and ultimately forteaching me the real meaning and source of wealth.”
– LUCY EMERSON-BELL, Intern 2009
Core Values
Community
Sustainability begins with modest acts of responsibility. Each act, as modest as it may seem, contributes to a culture of sustainability and shared awareness that can serve to regenerate the health of both people and ecosystems. Sustainability is a cultural process and depends on the everyday actions of ordinary people. We depend on good health in all systems for our survival. Our fates are intertwined.
Sustainable Settings at it’s core is a laboratory to observe, explore, and discover new and old ways of living in accordance with Nature. It is a 28 year old experiment striving to redevelop and co create new living settlements, food production, research, and business models. It is a sustainable model for daily life.
Cooperation, not competition, is the very basis of existing life systems and of future survival.
Internships, workshops, and public events that welcome diverse ages, backgrounds, and abilities.
Daily work is organized so manual, intellectual, and spiritual tasks are respected as equally essential.
Vision & Mission
Our Vision: We are here to ignite epiphanies and change lives through the application of conscious connected agrarian practices.
Our Mission: Advance understanding and adoption of biodynamic agriculture, resilient local food systems, sustainable human settlements, and the reconnection to our authentic selves through practical demonstration, research, and education.
Economy
Economic life thrives on collaborative service, not competition.
Focus on human-centered economies – economies that serve humans not the other way around.
Profits are reinvested in soil health, education, staff, and community well-being.
Our main “products” are changed lives, epiphanies, social impact and influence. The produce, milk, meat, demonstration, lectures, publications, and all the rest are merely doorways for those that are looking to develop a new relationship with themselves, their neighbors, and Source.
Develop human-scale, decentralized, and appropriate technologies, emphasizing local needs and resources, and promoting "good work" for proper human development.
Advocate a shift away from mass production towards production by the masses, prioritizing ethical considerations and sustainable development within the planet's limits.
Advocate for technology that serves humanity, addresses local needs, and keeps people on and engaged with the land.
Ecology
Insist on rights of humanity and nature to coexist in a healthy, supportive, diverse and sustainable condition.
Encourage Diversity – As a general rule, as sustainable systems mature they become increasingly diverse in both space and time. It is crucial to encourage the complexity of the functional relationships that exist between elements, rather than merely quantifying the number of elements.
Every living system is free to unfold its inherent potential
We are here to heal the land from soil degradation and abuse through biodynamic, regenerative, and beyond methods.
The farm is an alchemical laboratory to conduct independent research on biodynamic and regenerative agriculture, crop production, soil health, nutrient density, human health and more.
Meet the Guides
Brook LeVan
Co-Founder & Executive Director
Brook LeVan received a MFA, NYSCC from Alfred University, BFA, Kansas City Art Institute. He is a certified Permaculture designer and consultant and an alumnus of the Institute for Social Ecology (1978). He has consulted, practiced and taught sustainable design, green building, renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, wetland creation and art and design. Mr. LeVan is a Fulbright Scholar and has extensive research and travel in Africa, Asia and North and Central America. He has held faculty positions at Pomona College, University of Connecticut and James Madison University. He has published, lectured and exhibited internationally. Mr. LeVan is a National Advisory Board Member of Solar Energy International and The Wright Way Foundation, a founding Board Member of the Thompson Divide Coalition.
Rose LeVan
Co-Founder & Office Manager
Rose LeVan has a BFA in Graphics and Communication, Florida State University. Rose founded and directed Cultural Arts Together, as an education outreach program of The Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in Omaha, NE. As a Mentor/Educator, Rose worked with children in the BOCES program, New York and COMPASS Mentor/Apprenticeship Program, Woody Creek, CO. Rose is a baker, organic garden-farmer and milk maid!
Jared Minori
Development Director
Jared Minori is a young farmer, educator, student, and current Development Director at Sustainable Settings. Jared has experience managing dynamic farm operations and educating others on biodynamics, permaculture design, compost making, animal husbandry, and more. He has managed vegetable and animal operations in Pennsylvania, a vineyard and olive orchard in California, and has managed Sustainable Settings here in Carbondale. He loves to think about how cultivating healthy soil can nourish our communities and enliven our food systems.
Contact us
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