What exactly is the Serenbe Institute for Art, Culture and the Environment and why did Steve Nygren start it?
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What exactly is the Serenbe Institute for Art, Culture and the Environment and why did Steve Nygren start it?
As a restaurateur Steve Nygren owned multiple locations and had a home in Midtown Atlanta, the city’s arts center. He saw firsthand the importance of supporting the arts and how it can strengthen and build healthy communities. Serving on multiple boards he came to realize how arts organizations continually struggle to receive sufficient funding even when the broader community and foundations do provide support. So when Steve decided to build a community from scratch, he knew arts would be an integral part of Serenbe and wanted to build in a permanent source of funding that would give an organization a financial springboard; so he created a stand alone non-profit organization, the Serenbe Institute for Art, Culture and the Environment. Built into the organization is a 1% transfer fee on every house sold or resold in Serenbe, and 3% fee for every piece of undeveloped land sold; since its inception, Serenbe has contributed over $4 million in funding to the Institute.
Once all the legal details were in place the next step was finding someone to run it. John Graham became that person, starting as a consultant for the Institute and after becoming enamored with the community he decided to stay and became the Institute’s founding Executive Director.
The first arts program, AIR Serenbe, an artist-in-residence program, kicked off the Institute, with big plans to fund a pottery studio. There was early success with the residency but no permanent home, artists stayed in resident’s extra bedrooms or garage apartments. Since then Serenbe partnered with Auburn University’s design build architecture program, Rural Studio, to build two dedicated artist cottages on the Art Farm at Serenbe. Then in 2009 Brian Clowdus showed up suggesting Serenbe needed a theatre. The Institute granted him a start-up budget of $40,000, and Serenbe Playhouse was born. Now 10 years later, it is a nationally-recognized outdoor theatre producing six site-specific productions, musicals and plays, each year.
Since then, the Institute has grown introducing Terminus Modern Ballet Theatre in 2017, a Serenbe Fellows program, Serenbe Film with more units and programming that bring all forms of art and environment programming to the community and visitors from around the globe.
What is the Serenbe Institute for Art, Culture & the Environment?
Why was it important for Steve Nygren to honor the arts in a specific way at Serenbe?
How do Serenbe residents support the Serenbe Institute?
How did Steve Nygren get the idea to use transfer fees as a permanent source for arts funding at Serenbe?
What was the first arts program in Serenbe?
How did former Atlanta Ballet principals end up creating a company under the Serenbe Institute?
Terminus Modern Ballet Theatre
Auburn University Rural Studio
Monica Olsen (1s): Hey guys, it's Monica here. I wanted to tell you about a new podcast that I've started with my very good friend Jennifer Walsh called Biophilic Solutions. Our last season of Serenbe Stories, Building a Biophilic Movement, was so popular that we decided to dedicate an entire podcast to it. Every other week Jennifer and I will sit down with leaders in the growing field of biophilia. We'll talk about local and global solutions to help nurture the living social and economic systems that we all need to sustain future generations. More often than not, nature has the answers. You can find Biophilic Solutions on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and follow us today so you don't miss an episode.
Monica Olsen (41s): All right, now let's get back to Serenbe Stories. Serenbe is a place where people live, work, learn, and play in celebration of life's beauty. And we're here to share the stories that connect residents and guests to each other, and to nature. This is Serenbe Stories.
Monica Olsen (1m 24s): Today we're going to talk about the Serenbe Institute for art, culture, and the environment. What it is, how it's grown, and the importance of supporting arts in any community. Steve, welcome back.
Steve Nygren (1m 34s): Thank you.
Monica Olsen (1m 35s): Today I want to ask you, what is the Serenbe Institute? What does it mean? And how did you get the idea? And what does it do? It's a lot.
Steve Nygren (1m 46s): My first restaurant was in Midtown, which was not a great place to be, but we Midtown on the Northern edge was the Woodruff Arts Center. And then of course, two blocks from the original restaurant was the Fox theater. Now back in 73, the Fox theater was, was not an asset. In fact, just the opposite. It was head worse than B rated movies. And mostly, you know, it was what do you call something that's, you know, the X-rated movies?
Steve Nygren (2m 30s): And people were discovered having sex in the aisles and they closed it down. It was, people can't imagine how bad it was. And then this is when Southern Belle bought it to tear it down. And then there was the huge fight. So just to
Monica Olsen (2m 43s): To save it.
Steve Nygren (2m 44s): But having eventually three restaurants in Midtown; Pleasant Peasant, Nic's and the country place at Colony Square, we saw the importance of arts in so many ways. And I ended up serving on, on various arts boards and realized the struggle that our arts organizations have in raising the money to know if they're going to be able to continue next year or two years. And so I saw that from both sides, the asset that they brought and the difficulty they had in the broader community not really supporting them in meaningful ways. And so, as we were going to develop a true community, I wanted to make sure that we honor the arts and in a significant way, not just saying we wanted arts, but how are we going to set up some sort of a permanent funding?
Steve Nygren (3m 34s): And so that's where we created the Serenbe Institute for Arts and Environment, but with it was a 1% transfer fee for every house sold or resold in the future and as 3% on every piece of undeveloped land. And so this gives a permanent funding source that really has worked as a springboard. It isn't the, it isn't the total source that funds these, but this gives the foundation that, that they can rely on as then they figure out how to fund the various organizations through ticket sales and other grants that might come in.
Steve Nygren (4m 15s): And it has worked better than I ever imagined. Here again probably because the people who showed up with passion to use this foundation as a springboard to do some really great things and what Brian Clowdus has done with the theater's a good example. The fact that the contemporary group from the Atlanta ballet were able to come under our umbrella, that we had an established umbrella we were able to bring this very professional troupe in. So there's two examples of one arts organization that was developed under our roof and another one that came for the protection of the things they needed. So it's done a lot.
Monica Olsen (4m 54s): Was there anybody else doing this sort of transfer fee where there had a recurring funding mechanism in a country or in a development that you saw, or where did you get that idea?
Steve Nygren (5m 4s): There had been some things for green space protection, and I'm not sure that anyone had used this for the arts, but because we had our transfer development rights, we didn't need this vehicle for green space protection. We were doing that through legislation, but there was no way to guarantee or to legislate support for the arts. So we really saw that that need, and it was just a tool that realized, gosh, this could be applied in the way we needed it.
Monica Olsen (5m 37s): Were there any other people that inspired you to do it? Cause it seems like there's a little bit of that now. We see developers putting arts into a building or a community sort of almost as a marketing tool, but that wasn't really the purpose for you. It was really to, to have arts in a community from a cultural standpoint.
Steve Nygren (5m 57s): Well you look, you know, through the centuries in great places that we remember and go to visit the, the, the founders, the patrons, the, the, the civic leaders have really honored arts and brought arts in. And, and it's, it's, it's, it's transitions through time. And I think in the last several decades, we've, we've lost valuing arts in, in that way. It's private patrons, but very rarely civic organizations in a big way. And you know, there, there are many examples. So, so this wasn't a new concept.
Steve Nygren (6m 39s): It was just bringing it back to a small scale that we were in honoring in a way that we could do. And I, I didn't have the wealth that I could be the patron. And that would not be sustainable unless there was a huge endowment that then they could live off of that. So this was figuring out how we could do a more realistic way and that the people that are going to benefit were the people who are going to buy here. And so how could we develop a source where they participated? You know, even well-meaning people, sometimes won't come up with a volunteer contribution.
Steve Nygren (7m 19s): And so this just made it that, that level of saying anyone who's here is, is going to support the arts.
Monica Olsen (7m 26s): So once you knew you wanted to do that, I think that was right from the beginning, right around 2004. How did you decide to organize the Institute? I know it's a nonprofit and who did you find to run it?
Steve Nygren (7m 40s): You know, we, we had all the legal pieces with our CCRS and everything. So that was just a, a lawyer dealing with the conceptual thesis of it. Back in those conceptual days, we brought, we met every six weeks and I think I've talked about with Phil Tabb. He was one of those people that came into those meetings. Well, in the same case, we had people that ran arts organizations. Judy Barbara was one of the first ones who ran the various arts organizations and artists retreats. And, and, and so she would early consulting. And then we realized that we need some, some, we, we had the structure there, but we needed somebody to really come in and, and help us refine the concepts.
Steve Nygren (8m 27s): And we then learned of Graham Tomlinson. And this is a organization who the Atlanta symphony had contracted with for a feasibility study for the symphony hall that was in on the plans. And there was some contacts that knew him and asked them if they would come down. So we gave them a six month contract to help us refine the principles and the documents and, and how we would actually launch as we would close our first houses. And the first money came in, how would we do we just hold onto it and start the programming?
Steve Nygren (9m 9s): And so John Graham decided he liked what he saw here. And we had one townhouse that was being built by people in California that could not move here. They had just received a appointment from the governor in California at the time. And so they had to delay their move and they decided to rent their townhouse. And so John decided to rent that. So here, John, who we had on a six month contract, moved in. Also one of our early residents was Shelton Stanfield, who was just retiring from the Woodruff Arts Center. And the 10 years before that ran a Wolf Trap and was the current chair of the board for the Telluride film festival.
Steve Nygren (9m 52s): So here I had these two arts powerhouses living right here, and John then served as our part-time executive director as we were forming the Institute and Shelton was a board member who then later became chairman of the board. And so it's, as I said, I couldn't have imagined the people that would move here. And this is a good example. I could not have orchestrated a, a search would have found two better people to come guide this through.
Monica Olsen (10m 28s): So what was the first arts program that started in the early days? I believe that it started with Tom Swanston and the artists in residency program. Is that correct?
Steve Nygren (10m 38s): You're testing my memory. So there were several things starting. I remember we thought we could fund a pottery studio and we did a feasibility study and a lot of work around a pottery studio. And we have yet to build a pottery studio.
Monica Olsen (10m 59s): We have a wheel now. And we do some hand classes.
Steve Nygren (11m 8s): We had a, I believe Tom was pushing yes on an artist in residence. And it was, it was an artist in residence and we had some success there and we did a, a sculpture. I'm trying to remember the artist's name now was in, in the Crossroads we had an installation of an actual sculpture piece and we would get people to volunteer for their guestroom or carriage house. So there were some early starts there, but it was, it was very slow. It wasn't, it wasn't a big piece.
Monica Olsen (11m 42s): No, it was very quiet. And the reason I even bring that up is because I was on that board when I first moved here, I jumped on that board and it was very early days. I think the mural is over here on the wine shop was painted. And there was somebody doing a film that had been here for a week, but everybody was staying, the residencies were in people's garage apartments and second bedrooms and all over the place. So it was sort of a very quiet board run, no executive director. And so that was sort of over here on the side that I want to say, you know, Tom was our first chair, Tom Swanston, and then Brian Clowdus walked in.
Steve Nygren (12m 20s): That's right. And I'd have to look at the exact year sequences here. It was all started kind of, you know, for, for clarity, Tom and his wife, Gail Foster were our first artists in residence, but more than that, they actually bought. And so they were here with their residents, their two studios and their gallery. And so that was our real arts presence and we knew them. And so we made sure that, that we could bring them in. So we want that presence of artists here. And then Tom was, was really helped find that program and I think form that board, and I can't remember just exactly the years of when that board started and when Brian Clowdus showed up.
Monica Olsen (13m 2s): Right. And had you collected Gail and Tom's work before, is that how you knew them?
Steve Nygren (13m 6s): Yeah, we had, well, we had Gail's work and I think if you talk to Tom and Gail, Gail was a fairly famous artist and Tom was helping support, facilitate her while he was finding his own way in art. And it was after he moved here that he started the, the crane series. And that was from being in the woods here, watching the cranes travel. And now he has really become a known name on his own, but that when they moved here, I, you know, Gail was the famous artist and he was the emerging artist.
Monica Olsen (13m 49s): And we have a fabulous crane painting in our lobby here at the office we'll throw up on the website as well. So back to Brian Clowdus. So tell me a little bit about that. That's sort of this iconic story now about the Playhouse.
Steve Nygren (14m 2s): Yeah so it was close to the same time. And again, that reminds me, we should, we should look, I've, I've got to look at those calendars time, time goes through, but Brian came here with his sister because she had fallen in love with Serenbe and all the concepts. And so Brian saw some of our, I forget it was a Shelton or the introductions came and he said, you, you, you need a theater here. And we said, yes, we know, we know we have this Institute, but that's gonna be down the road before we have that kind of money where we're thinking, we'll do a pottery studio now. And he said, well, you know, I could, I could do something, you know, outside, listen, you know, I could do something. And, and so here again, because we had other people trying to hand us their dreams.
Steve Nygren (14m 44s): And even at that point, some, some other people that were thinking, oh, we could do a neighborhood theater. And so, because of the wisdom of, of Shelton and John, they interviewed and talked with Ryan and they came back and said, you know, this, this kid's got spirit and talent. And I think we should, you know, give him a little money and see what he can do. And so we gave him $25,000. Brian raised money. He did a Jungle Book in, at the tree house in the woods. J and R and the courtyard. And I think there was one other, so they're very simple productions. And that was the springboard that Brian has done incredible things with, with outside placemake theater.
Steve Nygren (15m 30s): And I think their budget this year is what reached 2.5 million to a full-time staff. And it's nationally, internationally known as this, you know, incredible theater group. The, you know, it's, it's going to run for- productions run for weeks on end, sold out, Tuesday through Sunday nights.
Monica Olsen (15m 51s): And in Fast Company this year as one of the top theaters in the nation, one of the top companies in the world, I think they said, so it is and it's their 10 year anniversary. So here we go, there, we can have a date. He popped in, in 2009. And it's just been an incredible run from them. And now they're year round musicals and theater here in the woods, still in the woods.
Steve Nygren (16m 11s): We could not imagine building a theater now because a huge part of it is outside. And, you know, if you had a theater, Brian couldn't land helicopters, or have live horses move in, or sink Titanic boats, and just the incredible things that he does, they're not confined. And, and I think the same thing now you see our contemporary dance. It is, it has opened their imagination to take the walls down and to be outside. So now they have live fire and, and all sorts of incredible things that they could never do with closed space.
Monica Olsen (16m 46s): So tell me a little bit about Terminus modern ballet theater. This was a group that came out of the Atlanta ballet.
Steve Nygren (16m 52s): This was the Atlanta ballet and John McFall was the creative director at the Atlanta ballet and had encouraged contemporary dance. And there was a group that had, had really developed incredible dance and a great reputation. When John retired, the new artistic director did not have that same contemporary appetite. And so the contemporary core realized that they needed to leave. And there was great concern that they could leave Atlanta. They could disband, and they needed an organization to bring in the nonprofit and to organize.
Steve Nygren (17m 33s): And because of our bylaws within the Serenbe Institute, we were able to provide them all those things that they needed to, to manage their payrolls, to, to be a nonprofit status. And so they organized as Terminus under the Serenbe Institute. So it's a great story, but- what's happening there, and then more things, we have the art farm, we have art over dinner. The art farm we're developing a 40 acre campus. And this is so there is a place for visiting artists to come. Our first 500 square foot cottages built in partnership with Rural Studio dealing with affordable housing.
Steve Nygren (18m 19s): And so we're we're touching many social issues through the arts that are dealing with a lot of other, other things. That 40 acres we'll build out to probably 40 to 50 cottages, dorms, rehearsal studios. So it will really be a destination different than a lot of art retreats and programs that we see, because whether you're dealing with arts, psychology, people that go on retreat tend to associate what they discover or the enlightenment with that remoteness. And they have trouble simulating it when they come back into the urban environment.
Steve Nygren (18m 60s): And so we have this important bridge here that it's, it's remote, but not so remote. It's immediately next to and adjacent to the community. And when artists are here, they're asked to do at least one thing with the community. And of course, what happens is they meet people. They get invited to potluck dinners, and they're really able to be in retreat and in community at the same time, which makes our program different than, than, than most you have around the country.
Monica Olsen (19m 31s): Well and then they get to live in those rural studio cottages that are the AIR program, the artist in residence program, then programs, if you will, with all their fellowships, which is fantastic. So they have a little bit of a remote moment, but then they can come into the community. One of the smaller groups that, that I've always liked is called the Serenbe fellows. Will you talk a little bit about that, and, you know, some of the people who've come in have had really big impact on the community as far as education and the Biophilic Institute. So if you maybe give us a little about them.
Steve Nygren (19m 60s): Thought leadership has, is where we are. So this can be authors this can be people who are maybe in a political career and in-between, and we've had some, some really incredible folks. And, and this provides them a place to simply be in retreat, possibly they're writing a book, whatever they're doing. And we do ask them to have one lecture or something with the community. Of course, they get to know community leaders. And it really changes. I think, you know, some of the early, we had a Dr. <inaudible> here to talk about education when we were trying to deal with education. And you look at what we've done today. That really is an outgrowth, whether the charter school that was created or the Montessori, that was an outgroup of some of that thought leadership that came through that fellows program, Puck Mykleby came in after retiring from the United States Marine as an officer.
Steve Nygren (20m 57s): And he was starting to work on his book on the grand strategy. And he had been asked by Ed <inaudible> is to really look at the, the threats that the United States would be facing and what our grand strategy should be. It was through my morning coffees with Puck that he said, what you're doing here is literally a matter of national security. And at that point I was formulating some of the ideas around what I was referring to as a green lab. And we were talking about the principles of biophilic design. And, and so it was through Puck's encouragement and support that we launched the Biophilic Institute with me as chairman and him as vice chairman.
Steve Nygren (21m 42s): And he remains vice chairman today of that. And he's gone on to write the book, and this is an important whole philosophy. So, and there's been many more, these thought leadership folks that are dealing with all levels of society and in some of the challenges we have, and then people who have lived through some very interesting times. So these people, it's fun to have them expose both in a formal presentation and then just coffee, at one of the restaurants.
Monica Olsen (22m 12s): Right. So Steve, one of the things I'm curious about, you know, the AIR program, artists in residence has been around since 2007, who are some of the artists that were kind of highlights to you, or that you remember specifically?
Steve Nygren (22m 24s): Golly, we've had so many, we could spend quite a time talking about them, but thinking about different disciplines that have been here and, and folks I remember, well, Paul Villinski of course is one because uniquely he does these incredible objects, butterflies from beer cans that he collected and they're glazed. And they're just incredible pieces of art. In fact, we, we have one on our wall and if you, if you walk by our townhouse, you can see it. And these butterflies are fluttering, but I think it's, it, it, it's what happens here with the synergy because Paul arrived and was doing some of his work. And at the same time we had a printmaker
Steve Nygren (23m 5s): And I wish I could remember who that, who that is, but they were here at the same time. And in their artistic discussions, the, the, the print maker asked him if he owned the photography images, because Paul has installation. Some of them are 20 foot walls. And Paul said, well, well, yes, I guess I do. And he says, you realize that's another form of art that you have. And so while here, Paul started making prints of his images of these wonderful butterflies. And now that is a, another financial vehicle of him promoting his art. And, and he gave us one of the first prints, cause this was a whole thing.
Steve Nygren (23m 49s): So, so this is what happens here. We bring the artists here and other things kind of happen that propels them even in some directions. So, so that's a good example. I think the story of Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston is, is another interesting one because here you have people that are in London and New York, and they have met in various places around the world and people suggest they should do a project together. And they keep talking about that. But when one would be in New York and the other one London, their own hometowns, they were always too busy doing things to really work. And suddenly they had heard about the artist in residence program at this rural place in the south, and neither one had ever been to the south, but they decided they, they connected with us.
Steve Nygren (24m 37s): We decided to invite them both at the same time. And so the wonderful, some of the synergy they did, I remember all the kids gathered around them in the farmer's market. And, and as they were doing all these, these pictures. So it's great fun. And then of course you have to think of Sarah Kay. I mean, Sarah Kay was, was, you know, I think she was what, 20 or 21 when she did her first Ted talk and became one of the stars we invited back and back with a spoken word artist. And, and Sarah was doing a lot of traveling around the world. I think Serenbe just kind of became her base. We were easy to get to. And she had connected with the people here.
Steve Nygren (25m 18s): This was in the days before we had the cottage. And so she was staying in the guest room of one of our key folks here and they, they hit it off. And so Sarah is now on our board that helps curate and, and we're sort of becoming a center for the spoken word artists. And we've had some of the real celebrities in that area and Anis Mojgani and Buddy Wakefield, Eve Ewing, Dame Wilburn, Ray Christian, many, many. And so they return and, and we do an entire, I think it's up to two weeks now that we bring several in and they work on a, so we, we have playwrights that come in. Jason Reynolds out of Brooklyn was here. It's, it's amazing because we literally now with our, our, our artist in residence cottages and expanding that campus, we have artists from various disciplines from all over the world, living with us 52 weeks a year.
Monica Olsen (26m 12s): Right. And how is it that those are funded, that, that they're fellowships, correct?
Steve Nygren (26m 18s): This is all fellowships and it's various invitations. It's always housing and various fugue and stipends, depending on, on the artist. This all comes through our Institute, which is funded by our 1% transfer fee for every house that's sold or resold. It is 3% on an undeveloped lot. Now there's additional grant money or contributions that come into the various units, but the foundation was this transfer fee that really gives not only voice to the fact that we support the arts, but it's actually a funding tool that, that lives on for as long as we're reselling houses.
Monica Olsen (26m 58s): Well, and I think that that's a great point. And I know that that is what sort of has been incubating all of the arts programs. And I know the Playhouse sort of has the highest profile, but I think the artists in residence program has had incredible success. And I know that they just hired a new executive director, Darren Wang, who was the founding executive director of the AJC Decatur book festival. He's also been an AIR Serenbe artist in residence. He's an author. And so this hire has an opportunity to really further their mission. And I would think, bring in more authors,
Steve Nygren (27m 29s): All this ties in to really create Serenbe as a center for the arts.
Monica Olsen (27m 36s): It's true. I think of it as a, just a really great platform and Serenbe, which is really exciting to me that it can be the place where anyone can come, right? It's not just one type. It's not just one company. It's not just one nonprofit, but it's sort of like all of the arts are welcome as to come and sort of grow with us. There was a really great couple from New York that came down in TV production and they had sort of incubated a film group. And so that was sort of a fun few years.
Steve Nygren (28m 8s): Yeah. We have, you know, they, they live here now and they were transferred in and they had both grown up in, in Manhattan and were, couldn't imagine coming to the rural south, found Serenbe and they launched the Serenbe film series. And so as these things grow, I, I it's, we set up the Institute to, to, to give the foundation, but clearly it's the person who arrived in the passion that makes it happen. As I've said before, we envisioned that we could fund a pottery studio because that's, what was we saw as missing in Atlanta.
Steve Nygren (28m 49s): Well, while we have some potters, we've never had that passionate person show up, but you have Brian Clowdus we never imagined we could be where we are in theater. While we'd always talked about building a dance studio here, we'd never imagined that a developed dance team would come and be under our umbrella. And so these purely are the situations where Serenbe Institute is positioned as a place where either established organizations can come find a home or someone with passion can take something and move it to something is great.
Steve Nygren (29m 35s): And nationally and internationally known as, as we've seen.
Monica Olsen (29m 39s): Tell me about some of the newer units of groups. I guess environment's always been a part of it, but tell me about sort of what the environment side of the Institute, how does that, what's that role?
Steve Nygren (29m 52s): We created, I mean, it's the Serenbe for arts and environmental education. And so environmental is just part of our zoning and sort of the given. And we really had to bring the arts forward. So the first year is most of the funding and focus. I went to arts programs, but now we are ready to do a deeper dive into the environmental aspects. The Serenbe Institute is set up to hold the easement on all of the preserved lands. So 70% of Serenbe is protected from development. Now that isn't a traditional conservation easement necessarily it's just non developed.
Steve Nygren (30m 37s): And so we are unique from a development standpoint in the fact that the development company transfers ownership of that land to the HOA as you find in most places, but to give a level of protection, the conservation easement is held by the Institute. And so the Institute then engaged the University of Georgia to do a complete assessment of all of those protected lands that they would have the easement on. So that's been a wonderful relationship now. And we now fund with University of Georgia, a intern program.
Steve Nygren (31m 18s): So each semester we have an intern dealing with various projects. They're just finishing a report on stream restoration. They have a complete trail mapping of the trails through the natural areas, and we're going to move that forward into all the various trees, identifying the wildlife, the native plants, and all there. So this is just an emerging part that's being funded now to really have the environmental committee and programming moving forward. Serenbe life is a another that is dealing with community issues and a sense of place when there was, you know, 40 50 of us, it was, we met in the streets and we understood what Serenbe life meant and the development of it.
Steve Nygren (32m 13s): And now it as we're reaching 700,000 people it needs to have a little bit more organization to that. And so they're working on various things. They have one of our fellows, David Brain has suggested abundant community, and the group has read that. Now they're taking a lot of those principles and, and moving forward with some of those aspects that you see in abundant community that happens fairly natural here, but now we're really organizing to talk about it and identify it.
Steve Nygren (32m 53s): And also we're w they're looking at the history. Serenbe's reaching 15 years, I guess, it's time just to start the storytelling about what is Serenbe all about. And so they're really documenting the various relationships and spontaneous things that happened that, that are part of what happens in community.
Monica Olsen (33m 14s): Well, and then another great initiative that was started a few years ago, I think, formed in, oh, sorry, 2016 is the South Fulton Initiative. And I would say that's something that I know the Institute in Serenbe is really proud of because it's more of an outreach and engagement program versus having people come to Serenbe, which is phenomenal, but really sort of giving back to the community that we sit within. Talk a little bit about that for us.
Steve Nygren (33m 38s): It's wonderful what Serenbe has been able to do in many aspects, whether it's education or art for the area of South Fulton, for those people that might be listening and not familiar with Metro Atlanta, almost all development and cultural things happen in the Northern section. We w we, we say north of I20 for the locals and south of I 20 has not been developed. And so there is a lot of poverty. This is what makes Serenbe very unique is we have landed in the middle of one of those undeveloped, but there are pockets of poverty. And so Serenbe has been able to reach out in many ways.
Steve Nygren (34m 22s): And when the Institute realized that there was no other professional organization dealing with the arts in a 30 mile radius, our leadership decided to do something about that. And so they have an outreach that was formed in 2016, and they do various types of art projects in the Marta stations on the south side, in Grady hospital, in the Atlanta public libraries, in Atlanta parks and recreation. And this is just a huge enrichment program for people that may not be exposed in, in other ways.
Steve Nygren (35m 3s): And I think we can all feel real good about that. And I think that's going to grow, and we're gonna realize a lot of the benefits in the years to come are the people that we're touching and affecting through these programs.
Monica Olsen (35m 15s): I think it's really great that the initiative has really reached into each of the arts groups from the Playhouse, to the residency, to ballet to say, you know, what can you do? You know, so it's really a collaborative process of like, what would you want to do? What can you do to bring people sort of go back out? And then also they're doing a lot of work with schools where they're bringing the work into the schools and they're doing shows, or if they can, I know the Playhouse will bring students in. I believe that's, you know, they, they able to get tickets at like, you know, subsidized prices to bring the kids in to some of the all ages, as well as summer camps. So, you know, it's, it's amazing what's sort of been able to be done in sort of a short amount of time.
Monica Olsen (35m 58s): And it sort of, the future is bright. And I would say, you know, to your point about amazing people sort of dropping in.
Steve Nygren (36m 6s): So this is the kind of talent. Of course, our original chair was Shelton Stanfield who ran the Woodruff arts center for 10 years Wolf trap for 10 years before that John Graham, our part-time executive director managed the Seattle and Tampa symphonies, I believe it was. And it's just, I could go on and on with this incredible leadership that has come. Penny McPhee of the Arthur Blank Foundation is on the board. Tom Reed, the mayor of our Chatt Hills is on the board. So this is, this brings people from various walks of life and public and private engagement, understanding the importance of art in the community and know what are, what you're doing.
Steve Nygren (36m 47s): And so they are really involved here and we're just delighted to see that.
Monica Olsen (36m 51s): Right. Any other aspects of it that have come and gone or that you're interested in, or really you hear from the community? Like what would be next? I mean, that could be like a great question for the chair, but I mean, I'm sure you have a vision when you started, like, what else could be here?
Steve Nygren (37m 9s): Well, I think there's, you know, each program we have can certainly grow and has grown. And I think some of the facilities, we, we really want to develop the physical art farm area with some great studios. We, we would like to have a cottage really designed for specific art disciplines. You know, we might have one with a grand piano, we might have another one with it, with a separate cottage attached to it, but for all the visual arts, another one with the mirrors and the grab bar for, for dance.
Steve Nygren (37m 49s): And, and it could just go down the line of what are all the disciplines. And if we had cottages really dealing with that, and then we can work with a major arts organizations in Atlanta or the Southeast that if they have a creative person that needs a retreat, we are the place that you can come and, and do that. And I think somebody, you know, when you think of some of the things that have happened here is as Glo the dance group was working with Spano on the program they did together. This was, this was a place they could actually flush out some of those issues. And so it's, it's a place that the, the, the art farm physically can really be an incredible destination that that really grows.
Steve Nygren (38m 34s): Part of the other things with the arts is, is we're hoping to do a actual movie theater that would actually be attached to one of the hotels. And so it could be, you know, a, the theater seating or a stadium seating that could work as a conference center. But also we could do that Saturday night movie. We can have film screenings. It could be that inside place that we move on in a rain event for theater. So, so I think that, that, that, that mini concert hall movie house, and from the street, I want to look like one of the 1920s facades. There's some of those facades you can replicate and actually have some of them you can buy, you know, and you bring them all aside, but we have the perfect tale that we could do that stadium seating in and, and bring it about.
Steve Nygren (39m 23s): So I think there's a lot that could emerge. Of course, I, we definitely want to do the, the center for the arts, which is that incredible contemporary building. It'll have a restaurant, it'll have gallery space, a lot of studios that we can do a more visual piece while the art farm is the retreat. This would be the facing element that could have exhibits and shows and, and readings and all that kind of thing.
Monica Olsen (39m 50s): We'll put that architectural plan up on the website as well. Cause it's really beautiful. Gorgeous. Well, thank you, Steve. This is just great. Gave us a little taste of Institute. I mean, I encourage everybody to come down and come to some of the programming. It's incredible, and really amazing to be able to live here and walk to a performance in the woods. So thank you for your time.
Steve Nygren (40m 8s): Thank you.
Monica Olsen (40m 12s): Thank you for listening to Serenbe Stories. New episodes are available on Mondays. You can subscribe anywhere you listen to podcasts. For more details visit our website, serenbestories.com.
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Steve’s early career was in hospitality and in 1972, he opened the Pleasant Peasant, which became a restaurant corporation that grew to 34 restaurants in eight states by the time he departed in 1994. Steve and his wife, Marie, retired to a farm just outside Atlanta with their three daughters and six years later, he became concerned about urban sprawl invading their adopted country paradise.
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