Good Life Center

The Good Life Center is the historic homestead of vegetarians Helen and Scott Nearing, who wrote about the principles of animal-free agriculture in their 1954 book Living The Good Life. The book was reissued in 1970 and became a national bestseller. As a result, thousands of people traveled to the Nearing homestead, called Forest Farm, in Harborside, Maine, to witness their gardening methods and their famous compost piles. Many lucky visitors also enjoyed a simple, plant-based meal with the Nearings while there. Scott Nearing died in 1983, at age 100, and Helen died in 1995, at age 91. Today their former home is the nonprofit Good Life Center, which is open to the public from Juneteenth to Indigenous People’s Day each year, hosting talks and workshops on topics including gardening.