The Good Life Center pays tribute to back-to-the-land pioneers

Scott and Helen Nearing’s legacy and former philosophy

Noel Paul Stookey, singer and friend of the Nearings, performed songs including “If I Had a Hammer.” Photo by Steele Hays.

Sept. 8, 2026

By Steele Hays

CAPE ROSIER—Renowned folk singer Noel Paul Stookey and more than 60 supporters of the Good Life Center on Cape Rosier gathered Sept. 6 to celebrate the center’s inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places and to pay tribute to the legacy of back-to-the-land pioneers, Scott and Helen Nearing. The center was added to the register in December.

The nonprofit center was created following Helen Nearing’s death in 1995 to preserve the Nearings’ home, gardens and legacy. 

The Good Life Center’s plaque of recognition for placement on the National Register of Historic Places. Photo by Steele Hays.

“After Helen died, we wondered: Would people still continue to come? Well, they’re still coming from all over the world,” said Good Life Center board member Warren Berkowitz, who knew and worked with the Nearings in the 1970s. 

Their book, Living the Good Life: How to Live Sanely and Simply in a Troubled World, sold more than 170,000 copies after being republished in the 1970s, and helped popularize a movement towards self-sufficient living and organic farming. It also drew thousands of people to visit the Nearings’ home, Forest Farm. 

“The words ‘how to live simply and sanely in a troubled world’ still resonate,” Berkowitz said to the crowd. 

Scott Nearing, a former economist, was an astute teacher, Berkowitz said. When people asked him how to deal with garden pests and similar questions, Scott always gave the same response: “Improve your soil,” Berkowitz said.

“It was a metaphor for how to do life,” he said. “They didn’t tell you how to do it, but they helped you learn to find your own answers.” 

Noel Paul Stookey. Photo by Steele Hays.

Stookey sang a number of his signature songs, including “If I Had a Hammer,” written by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays, and also spoke about his experience as a friend of the Nearings. He and his wife, Betty, moved to Blue Hill in the 1970s “in no small part because of the Nearings,” he said. 

Berkowitz said the Good Life Center’s leaders hoped that the National Historic Register designation will help the center win grant money to finance needed maintenance work. As well as to fund a project to preserve the Nearings’ large book collection, which is still held in their former home, a stone and timber Swiss chalet-style building they built themselves.  

In addition to preserving the Nearings’ homestead, garden, and library, the Good Life Center hosts a series of speakers and workshops each season, and advocates for sustainable living skills, social justice and organic gardening.