Finding Phill Tabb
The greatest challenge was finding common ground among the larger land owner group. Value of the land was important and there were varied ideas on how to reach the greatest value for the land. In fact, there was discussion on what value meant. Was it monetary, quality of life or historical significance that created value? Some land owners were pure investors and for others, especially those who had inherited the land, the land equated to their life savings. For many who grew up in the area, the value was the open vistas and fresh air. For those of us from Atlanta, we marveled at the advantages of open country so close to a metro area. Most were passionate about whatever their opinion was regarding the future of the land.
It was like trying to balance 36 tennis balls on a flat board without edges. If we tilted the conversation one way or another too much, we could loose some over the edge. The balancing act was actually among the opinions of thirty-two landowners as four would not attend any meeting or join in the conversation, Of the four who would not attend; one was a land speculator and didn’t take the effort seriously (you will hear more about his couple later), the title on a second land parcel was in an estate held by an out of state bank, the third was someone who held a dislike for me and thus would not attend (took years to learn why) and a fourth out of state land holder. We needed a container to help magnetize the group that was showing up for meetings. How could people visualize our area developed in a different way from Cobb or Alpharetta or suburban America?
A map with a visual representation of what we might create seemed like the best option. Land planers have a process called a charrette which is a concentrated gathering of people over a few days to focus on a specific land area to conceive a plan for development around specific goals. We decided this was a good option to help crystallize a vision among the larger land owning group. Now, we needed to create an agenda and decide who could lead such an event.
During my years of retirement, we visited a friend in the English countryside and become enchanted with the hamlets and villages that dotted the rolling hilled countryside housing large number of the English population. Buildings are not allowed to follow the road out of town and each settlement had at least one pub, coffee house or restaurant and some had all three plus an inn. The common footpaths, narrow passages and attention to detail through the centuries was captivating. For me, the country side of England was a model I thought we could aspire to. How on earth could we emulate this through a zoning law that would result in a non disturbed countryside dotted with hamlets and villages in a property rights southern US state like Georgia?
A few months earlier I started accepting the idea that we may need to develop our own farm to demonstrate a possible way to achieve the balance between development and preservation, I started asking people I knew about who might help think about the aspects of thoughtful community development. The landscape architect and best known environmental land planner of the day in the southeast, Robert Marvin was engaged. For our meetings we invited knowledgeable people in the arts, agriculture, education and health. We learned about sacred geometry during our visits to England therefore we wanted to find someone in America who was trained with this insight of nature’s mathematical structuring. The Rocky Mountain Institute put me in touch with Phill Tabb who completed his doctorate on the English Village system and while in England also became trained in sacred geometry through his studies with Keith Critchlow.
When I first caught up with Phil, he was in Boulder Colorado where he had raised his family after returning to the US from England. There was instant connection as two main branches of my Swedish family were early settlers of Boulder County during the mid 1800s. I grew up on a generational family farm 15 miles from Boulder and cousins continue to dot the front range of Colorado. Plus I attended the University of Colorado in Boulder where Phill had taught and Kara and Quinn would attend in the years to come. The coincidence was even greater when I learned that Phill had worked with an environmental and planning firm, Rocky Mountain Consultants, in Longmont, Colorado, the town where I was born and have literally known my entire life. I had found our land planner. However, during the first conversation I didn’t consider him a professional planer as he was referred to me as an architecture academic and we already had someone advising us on a possible land plan. How he became Serenbe’s land planner is another story to be told in the history of Serenbe’s evolution.
Phill did visit Serenbe to advise us on the principles of sacred geometry. Within weeks he returned with a group of students for a charrette on Serenbe’s then 900 acres. We were delighted with the results from that three day event and the structure of Selborne and Grange that was devised then is basically what you see today.
When we discussed the need for a charrette to develop a map with the newly formed Chattahoochee Hill Country (CHC) board, I suggested bringing Phill back to lead this effort for the larger 40,000 acres. Next week I will remember that event and share the map that was produced.
