Ashevillage Institute

Centered in the oldest mountains on the planet, Asheville, NC is considered one of the greenest towns in the United States. Find out why….not from a brochure, but directly from the people who are making it happen. Ashevillage Sustainability Tours are personalized, guided tours that explore the greenest projects and people Asheville has to offer…

Please join us…
Walk through the homes and gardens of the pioneers of natural living. Visit their flourishing edible landscapes. Taste fresh herbs and homemade fermented treats out of their gardens. Explore beautiful hand-sculpted earthen buildings and meet the builders who designed and created them. Discover how you can use these innovative practices in your own home after experiencing them firsthand. Explore other examples of sustainability in action….Check out an innovative green restaurant, or a school where the children built their own chicken house, gardens, and wood-fired earthen oven. At the end of your tour, your guide will provide a list of local hot spots, organic restaurants, cafes, and more.
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Featured Tour options

Site A) The Ashevillage Institute Demonstration Site & Kleiwerks International Headquarters: A one-acre eco-urban paradise of edible landscapes; natural gravity-fed water catchment and aquaculture ponds; recycled courtyards and social gathering space; two earthen retrofitted homes, including a beautiful guest house; and a wooded sanctuary connected to 60 acres of woods and trails. Meet some of our staff and residents. Enjoy some tasty homemade garden or fermented treats.

Site B) Bixby Cottage: The first modern earthen building in the state of North Carolina. Built in 1998. This sweet little hand-sculpted cob dwelling features beautiful arches, niches, and a cantilevered bench. The only thing in the walls are 100% local red dirt, straw and sand.

Site C) Pearson Community Garden: Imagine turning an old dumping ground into a thriving source of healthy food and community gatherings. Pearson Garden has been under the care of two nonprofits for several decades. Featuring a social gathering space; two earthen-built structures, including a dry toilet; organic gardens, bees, a greenhouse, and little natural habitat pond.

Site D) Isaac Dickson Elementary School: Teachers at this public school initiated programs and projects that engaged the students in creating their own gardens. They brought in dirt, chickens and bees, created compost, and built their own structures, including a wood-fired baking oven from which they enjoy homemade pizza!

Site E) Yardie Homesteads: Visit any one of five urban homesteads. What are people doing in their own backyards to grow food, harvest water, save energy, and live the good life? Visit an Asheville innovator’s living laboratory, aka: their own backyard.

Site F) Green Sage Cafe or Sunny Point Cafe: Learn about how the greenest restaurant/cafes in Asheville set up their extensive recycling and compost systems, energy systems, and food-sourcing. Enjoy a delicious beverage or snack on us as you wrap up your tour!

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Tour Guides

Janell Kapoor is the Founding Director and Program Strategist for Kleiwerks International. She is an avid mud mama and international movement-builder, designer, and teacher of indigenous building skills. Janell’s work has inspired hundreds of thousands of people from over 45 countries to build their own homes with what they have where they are with no more than a week, or two of formal mud training. She organized and taught the first earthen building trainings in Thailand, Argentina, and Turkey. Results include the establishment of natural building and permaculture demonstration centers, ongoing educational programs, businesses, regional policy, and homes that support natural living and have the potential to reduce our global energy footprint by more than 90%. Janell founded and lives at the Ashevillage Institute, a one-acre, eco-urban demonstration. The site features an integrated living systems design of a 20,000 gallon five-pond catchment, filtration, aquaculture, and greenhouse system, chickens, bees, worms, mushrooms, edible and medicinal landscape, recycled courtyards, an outdoor earthen kitchen, and beautiful mud art. Janell is dedicated to the champion within each of us, and to the possibility that we may learn to live in balance with ourselves, each other, and this most beautiful planet we are blessed to inhabit.

Ash Aymond comes to the Ashevillage Institute as the Site Coordinator of our one-acre Permaculture demonstration center. His background is in engineering with a passion for natural systems design, building and teaching. As a mentor and tour guide to students and sustainable living enthusiasts, Ash has a particular knack for helping complex ideas make sense. He walks his talk by exploring as many aspects of sustainable living as he can get his hands on. Ash cherishes implementing these practical skills in order to build realistic solutions that support community life and show people how to integrate the natural world into their daily lives. Ash has worked and lived at communities that practice and promote ecological living, from Oregon to Asheville, North Carolina, where he currently calls home.

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Tour Packages & Fees

We have suggested package tours below and we are more than happy to customize a tour to suit your needs. If you prefer a different combination of sites, please let us know.

Note

Tours begin between 10am and 3pm, Monday thru Saturday.
For the two and three hour tours, your guide will travel with you in your vehicle.
Our tours are a venture of Kleiwerks International, and our local project, the Ashevillage Institute.
At least 50% of proceeds support our Sustainability Education Fund that trains community leaders from all over the world.
Tips are appreciated.

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Reservations

To make a reservation or for questions, please contact info@ashevillage.org.
Payments can be made by Paypal, check, or cash.
A $50 reservation deposit is needed at the time you book your tour.

Ashevillage Sustainability Tours are brought to you by Kleiwerks International, a nonprofit organization and international network of innovative design/build specialists. A percentage of all tour proceeds support our efforts to build ecological and social leadership with communities worldwide.

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We want to hear from you…

Please let us know how we can serve you further. If you are interested in a workshop or consultation, speak with your guide. They may also be able to arrange a meeting between you and other green specialists in the area.