About Neo-Terra

About Us

We are located in central Pennsylvania, focusing on advancing alternatives for living in a more healthful and regenerative way. Our endeavors include:

• growing food in an ecologically sustainable fashion;
• preparing healthy food and preservation of our surplus;
• living in healthful ways, and approaching illnesses within a holistic mind-body-spirit framework;
• creating healthy and sensible structures and settings which we all could and should have;
• analyzing and undertaking green energy design and retrofits; and
• integrating living technologies within our designs and structures.

We have been developing our own, and furthering existing green technologies and methods that will help heal ourselves and our ecosystems. We undertake projects and experiments in our own backyard, and for our clients.

Above: Raising and installing two new retrofitted solar hot water heating panels to augment the first two (shown at right) and our trusty team of helpers [November 2006]

We have been gradually retrofitting our 1938-built home to rely less on oil for heat and more on solar energy, aiming for affordability as well as sensibility. With the recent purchase of an adjacent ¼-acre lot, we hope to design a passive solar structure, one that integrates green with living technologies. All aspects of conventional building are up for scrutiny as we think through this building, including the sources and uses of energy in the structure. Candidate features include Passive House design, passive annual heat storage technology, a green roof, a greywater treatment system integrated within a bioshelter, rainwater collection, and food storage.

Our local Nittany Valley abounds with other potential projects, and we know several individuals who seek ecological alternatives to their current practices. These projects include home retrofits, a low-cost pond filtration system, and an attached greenhouse for winter heat collection and extended season food production.

Through Neo-Terra, we provide expertise on sensible housing design options, ecological landscaping, backyard mini-farming, alternative energy options, and ecological wastewater treatment. Our experience derives from living in the northeastern U.S.

Our Location

Mt Nittany in autumn

The historic village of Lemont overlooks the Nittany Valley and Penn State University from the foothills of Mt. Nittany in Centre County, Pennsylvania. We are two blocks from the local CATA bus stop; local grocery shopping is a mile away and downtown State College is 2.5 miles – a relatively easy bike ride. Being near a university, we live in a progressive community, a growing alternative health and healing community, and a growing organic/local food security movement. The Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture holds its annual meeting at Penn State in early February.

* green design * living technologies * holistic health * biointensive minifarming * organic gardening *

“We must become the change we wish to see in the world” -Mahatma Gandhi