The mission of The Good Life Center is to perpetuate the legacy of Helen and Scott Nearing.
The Good Life Center, through its programming and preservation of the historic Forest Farm homestead, advocates for simple and sustainable living skills, social and economic justice, organic gardening, and the non-exploitation of animals and the environment.
Seasonal Visiting Hours
From Juneteenth - Indigenous People's Day
1-5pm
Thursday through Sunday
Starting in September, weekends only
Events & Happenings
The 2026 Sunday Speaker Series is underway!
View all of our speakers and workshops on our
Seeking Resident Stewards for 2027 onwards!
Apply here
Did you meet Helen and Scott? Have the Nearings and their philosophies affected your life? We want to know! Check out our new Story Recorder.
Upcoming Events
Recent News
The Good Life Center issues an annotated reprint of Scott Nearing's The Great Madness
Over 100 years since it was first published, Scott Nearing's The Great Madness: A Victory for the American Plutocracy has now been printed again via The Good Life Center, with annotations by Nearing Historian Greg Joly.
The Great Madness prompts a Call to Action for the American people to save democracy from plutocratic destruction. Joly's annotations add historical context and political relevancy. A concluding essay by Tom Wirth emphasizes the Nearing conditions leading up to the writing of The Great Madness.
The Good Life Center would also like to thank Eliot Coleman for his generosity in making this reprint possible.
Copies are available at Forest Farm and in our online bookstore.
Big News!
We are honored to announce that The Good Life Center at Forest Farm has been placed on the National Register of Historical Places by the United States Department of the Interior.
Read more below:
Penobscot Bay Press, 26 February 2026: Forest Farm in Brooksville listed in National Register
The Ellsworth American, 24 February 2026: Good Life Center added to National Register of Historic Places
Bangor Daily News, 23 February 2026: Maine homestead of back-to-the-land icons added to National Register of Historic Places
Recently Mentioned: April 2026, Downeast Magazine: Eliot Coleman Has Figured Out How a Garden Can Feed Itself
Library Conversations: Bread Philosophy in the Nearing Library
Current Exhibition: Seeds & Threads by Dr. Rachael M Rollson (as part of the wild apotropaic art collective)
Upcoming Exhibition: Heather Lyons (nature gate & other works), Sept 6, 2026
Past Exhibition: Maine's Untold Vegetarian History Exhibit, courtesy of the Maine Historical Society
See archives here
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We acknowledge that the Good Life Center exists in the place we now call Harborside, Maine, which is home to the sovereign Wabanaki people. We honor and are grateful for the ancestral and contemporary Wabanaki peoples indigenous to this land in the Dawnland.