Farmside at Brightwood: Help Us Move the Farm and Build a Neighborhood That Lasts
Picture a street where twenty-one families own their homes. Where the kids ride bikes to a treehouse library, run experiments at an outdoor STEM station, and pick tomatoes from a working farm on their way home from the bus stop. Where neighbors from all walks of life live side by side and help each other. Truly a Homestead for All.
That's Farmside at Brightwood. We're building it right now in Durham, North Carolina, and we need your help to move the heart of it into place.
What we're building
Farmside is a pocket agrihood: twenty-one permanently affordable homes grown around a working farm and shared commons on 3.57 acres. This isn't another subdivision with a sign out front. It's a neighborhood designed around the things that make people actually know their neighbors.
Here's what's coming:
A working micro farm. Raised beds, fruit trees, a greenhouse, and small livestock. Food grown where people live, and kids who grow up knowing how.
A treehouse library and café. A homeschool network hub, a place where kids can gather and dream and adults can work, tucked into the trees.
An outdoor STEM station. Hands-on science under the sky, where kids work through experiments on weekends and after school.
Gathering places. An outdoor kitchen and pizza oven, gazebos, a playground, a picnic grove under a century-old magnolia, and an estate fountain at the heart of it all.
Green from the ground up. Native plantings, pollinator habitat, rain gardens, and a planted pond that keeps our creek clean instead of piping runoff away.
And around all of it, homes real people can actually afford to own, protected by a community land trust so they stay affordable for the next family, and the one after that. We don't do the standard HOA. This is a Homestead for All: neighbors who tend the place together.
Why we need you now
The farm came first. For six years it's been a living classroom and gathering space, growing across the whole property while we prepared to build the homes. Now it's time to move the entire homestead, the beds, the animals, the fruit trees, and the gathering spaces, down to the conservation land that will protect it forever, on the side where no houses will ever go.
That's eight months of hard work, and our first volunteer work group arrives in mid-August. Moving a farm by hand takes skilled labor, administration, materials, and a whole lot of sandwiches for the people giving their weekends to make it happen. While the engineers and architects work their magic, our organization is preparing for the reconfiguration.
Every bit of our funding is tied up in the entitlement process, which is expensive for a young land trust. So we're raising $200,000 to move the farm and carry it through this next stage of the project.
And here's the best part: every dollar we raise beyond our goal goes straight into a Down Payment Assistance Fund, helping qualified Durham families actually walk through the front door of a home they own.
Where we are in the process
This is not a someday dream. It's a project well underway. The land is assembled and paid for. We have an approved site plan, preliminary engineering complete, and a signed letter of intent from a capital partner to fund horizontal construction and our first home. We're moving through the final stage of entitlement now, and the farm relocation is the next step on the ground.
Want the full picture? We're happy to share it. Reach out anytime, or visit bagncompany.org to learn more about Farmside and everything Land & Legacy Group is building.
Where your gift goes
Paid labor to move animal housing, relocate mature fruit trees, and rebuild the farm on its permanent home
Materials: lumber, fencing, soil, and everything it takes to rebuild the beds, the animal housing, and the commons
Feeding our volunteers, because the neighbors giving their time deserve a good meal
Keeping it all organized, safe, and on schedule
Everything above $200,000 goes to helping a family buy a home
Give and be part of it forever
Every supporter becomes part of the Farmside story. Here's how we say thank you:
🌱 Seedling, $25 to $99. Your name among our founding supporters, on the community wall and website.
🌿 Cultivator, $100 to $499. Founding supporter recognition, plus an engraved paver on the commons path.
🌻 Grower, $500 to $2,499. The above, plus your name on a raised bed or fruit tree at the farm, and an invitation to our opening celebration.
🌳 Steward, $2,500 to $9,999. The above, plus a dedicated bench or greenhouse feature in your name, and recognition at the farm office.
🏡 Cornerstone, $10,000 and up. Name a landmark: the treehouse library and café, the STEM station, the greenhouse, the farm office, a gazebo, or the outdoor kitchen. Your name, or the name of someone you love, on a permanent part of a permanent place.
This is bigger than a garden
Durham is losing the kind of homes working families can afford to own. Farmside is one real answer, homes built on land held in trust so that affordability, culture, and stewardship stay put for the generations who come next.
You don't have to buy a home here to help build one. Move a farm. Plant a legacy. Help a family come home.
Grow. Nourish. Thrive.
Farmside at Brightwood is a project of Land & Legacy Group, a nonprofit community land trust, fiscally sponsored by ReCity Network. Donations are made to ReCity Network on behalf of Land & Legacy Group and may be tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. You will receive an acknowledgment from ReCity Network for your records.
