The Earthway
Șomartin, Transylvania
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Regenerative retreat center and working homestead
In Șomartin’s timeless hills, The Earthway invites you to slow the rush — where clay soil and shared stories mend the spirit.
We’re so glad you’ve found us — whether you crave mornings wrapped in mountain mist, tables heavy with garden-fresh feasts, quiet trails where the soul unclenches, or nights lit by firelight. If you love wild places and honest food, you’re already home.
The Earthway is a living sanctuary: restored Saxon stone breathing again, clay soil turning abundant under careful hands, community weaving around shared bread and laughter. Wood-fired ovens, small-batch brews, plum brandy warm, cheese that still carries the scent of the meadow.
Not an escape, but a return — to harmony with the land, with yourself, and with the people at the table.
Until the doors open, step into it through the Chronicles and the photographs: crisp rye mornings, pollinator walks, dinners under stars, hands in the soil. The path is open. Step gently — the land is listening.
The vision
The Earthway began with a vision that grew out of a deep connection to nature and a respect for traditional ecological knowledge — shaped by years of study in naturalism, permaculture and ecopsychology, and by my time learning from a Lakota elder. Each of those reinforced the same belief: that caring for the land means caring for every living thing, now and for a long time after. Rooted in the Native American principle of thinking ahead Seven Generations, The Earthway is an attempt at a model for resilience, balance, and community.
Three ethics carry the work, and they are practical long before they are philosophical. Earth care is rebuilding the mycelial networks under the beds and healing the watershed that runs through the village. People care is treating rest, elder wisdom and children’s play as real needs rather than luxuries. Fair share is honest pricing, knowledge passed on without gatekeeping, and a design that limits what we take while widening what there is.
What stands here now is nine years of that. A Saxon house, cottage and barn that spent the communist decades as the village’s Cooperative of the Craftsmen, and are coming back round to craft again — thick whitewashed walls, hand-hewn oak beams, a masonry soba stove at the heart of it. Solar panels on the barn roof, rainwater feeding the garden cisterns, no-dig beds under kale and calendula and heritage tomatoes, an orchard of plum, apple and walnut that asks little and gives a great deal. Terra-cotta floors worn smooth by generations, green leather couches that have held twenty-five years of stories, and wooden tables scarred from bread-kneading and late-night talks.
What it is becoming is a place other people can come to. The barn and the cottage are being remade for guests. A punct gastronomic local — a small licensed kitchen, eight seats at a time, serving what the garden and the valley actually produce. A little brewery and distillery working with regional grain and wild harvest. Workshops in permaculture design, foraging, fermenting and folk craft, for people who would rather carry the skills home than the photographs. And further out, quietly, something closer to a monastery than a hotel: somewhere people come to work, to learn, and to sit still.
None of it is a grand plan. It is practical mysticism — small, deliberate acts that ripple outward, mending ground for great-grandchildren we will never meet.
— Kevin
Come stay
Rustic rooms, shared meals, time on the land, and space for a small group who want the whole place to themselves. None of it is open yet — but this is what is being built.
Eco B&B retreats
The Saxon barn and cottage, remade for guests — from a single quiet room to space for a family. Crisp mornings, bread from the village baker, breakfast out of the garden. Firelit evenings, walks into the hills, and as much company or as little as you want on any given day.
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The Ruin
The ruin next door, and the longest job on the list. It is meant to become the communal end of the place — an outdoor kitchen for bread, pizza and open-fire cooking, a fire circle to sit around, and room enough for village meals, reunions, a small wedding, or a workshop that runs into the evening.
Farm table
A punct gastronomic local — the Romanian licence for a small kitchen serving its own valley, capped at eight places. Seasonal Transylvanian plates built from the garden and from neighbours, house-made cordials, and food that is regional the whole way down. Private dinners, or the table for a gathering.
Contact usHands-on learning
None of this is running yet, and we would rather say so than sell you a date we cannot keep. What follows is what is being prepared — and all of it grows out of work that already goes on here, rather than something arranged for visitors.
How to read a piece of land and lay it out: zones and paths, where water wants to go, building soil instead of feeding plants, compost and mulch, orchard and polyculture planting. The ground here is heavy Transylvanian clay that won the first year and feeds us now — that long argument with the soil is most of what there is to teach. Half a day, or a full immersion for people laying out their own place.
Small-batch beer; apple and plum brandy and gin off a fifty-litre copper still; wine from what the hedges give. Then the rest of the table: sourdough, cheese and butter, canning and compotes, sirop de păpădie in spring and vișinată when the cherries come in. Closed-loop is the part people miss — spent grain, fruit pomace and whey go back to the animals and the beds, not out with the rubbish.
The work that keeps a place standing. Scythe and hay, firewood, fencing, and the care of tools. Lime plaster and timber repair — bringing Saxon buildings back without the modern materials that seal damp inside a wall instead of letting it leave. Chickens and the daily round. Soap and salves off the herb beds, which was a trade of mine long before it was a workshop.
For a group that wants the whole place to itself: teams, mentors, small weddings, reunions, and slow-food evenings around one long table. The land does most of the teaching. We cook, keep the fire in, and stay out of the way.
Get in touch
We are not open yet, so there is nothing to book — but there is plenty to talk about. Questions about the place, the work, the writing, or a visit somewhere down the road are all welcome.
The Chronicles
Essays from Somartin and before it — the Muddy Way, the Lakota years, stone houses and sacred pipes, and what seven generations actually asks of a person.
Photographs
228 photographs of the village and the country around it — the Saxon city down the valley, the fortified churches, and the open-air museum where the region keeps how it used to build. Taken over years of living here, not visiting.
Four views from the church tower, from Șomartin in Color.
The rhythm
Fresh bread, garden produce, coffee in the courtyard, and a walk through the orchard or village lanes.
Hands in the soil, a permaculture session, foraging, preservation work, or quiet time under the church hill.
Wood fire, shared table, seasonal plates, local spirits, and stories that make the place feel human.
Guests leave with skills, soil under the nails, recipes, field notes, and a reason to keep in touch.
Find the place
Transylvanian hills, Saxon heritage, the old city of Sibiu down the valley, and a working village that keeps its own rhythm. Getting here is part of the stay, not an obstacle on the way to it.
