At the time, he was living in Atlanta with his wife and three daughters, experiencing the numbing bustle of running a constellation of 36 successful restaurants. One weekend, the family took a day trip to the rural farms south of the city, resulting in the impulse purchase of a country home on 60 acres. In , he sold his business and moved the family out of Atlanta. By the late nineties, Nygren decided to create a bed-and-breakfast on the property, bestowing it with the name his wife had coined for their rural escape, Serenbe—a mash of serenity and being.
He worked with the local government to craft zoning laws to encourage conservation-minded, village-like developments rather than a sea of McMansions. Today, Serenbe is a hub of innovation with local, national, and global influence. Even with this heterogeneous populace, it strives to facilitate thoughtful conversation, in part by avoiding political messaging in its marketing.
All this growth has made Nygren a leader in the wellness-community trend. Today there are wellness-oriented communities outside Seattle, London, multiple Florida cities, and Tulum, Mexico.
Twenty minutes into the tour, Nygren led our group past the farmhouse that was his original home at Serenbe. The conversation fell on the weather. It was an unusually hot September, even by Georgia standards, which would typically bring out swarms of mosquitoes. But not here, Nygren explained to the group.
Serenbe is most frequently described using the phrase new urbanism , a movement to resist suburban sprawl and develop walkable, citylike neighborhoods. The term Nygren likes to use to characterize Serenbe is biophilic , an idea popularized in the eighties by the biologist Edward O.
Wilson , who believes that humans have an innate tendency to connect with the natural world. Research suggests that exposure to greener urban spaces can improve mental health , reduce cardiovascular disease and diabetes , boost immunity, and even possibly help patients recover from surgery.
Nature as therapy is the founding principle of biophilic design and, by extension, Serenbe. By developing the Mado hamlet, Serenbe is signaling its focus on health. As we walked by carefully maintained rows of produce near the farmhouse, Nygren addressed the tour group.
We passed an area described as the animal village, consisting mostly of goats. Nygren pointed in the distance. Do you see that? The goats are trained, and the people are trained, and then they put the goat on your back.
She sells out every class. People come from all over. Walking away from the animal village, Nygren talked about a Serenbe employee who had recently become an expert in forest bathing , originally a Japanese practice that involves mindfully engaging with nature. One participant raised his eyebrows and turned to his friend. In the Selborne hamlet, Nygren pointed out the lack of visible garbage cans—all residential waste at Serenbe is disposed of in underground vessels just outside each front door.
Occasionally, an Amazon Prime truck would pass by, jolting us back to reality. Like a museum tour that culminates at a gift shop, it was a reminder: utopia is also a business.
One man from the tour group smiled and turned to Nygren. As a temporary Serenbe resident, I wanted to fully immerse myself in its way of life. I saw a playhouse production The Sleepy Hollow Experience , did goat yoga which lived up to my Instagram expectations , took long walks through a wildflower meadow and a stone labyrinth , and ate plenty of farm-to-table salads my favorite was the Nordic salmon on mixed greens and haricots verts.
On my third day, I signed up for a horseback ride around the property, where our young guide, Emma, highlighted some notable vegetation and explained the temperament of the horses, some of which had not been getting along. I was hoping that fellow riders would be able to share some of the unvarnished realities about living at Serenbe. Make either the 1st left after the bridge for the Grange hamlet, or the 2nd left for the Selborne hamlet. Make a left on Tabb Way from Selborne to reach Mado.
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