Echowood is the kind of place where you think about your philosophy while changing a truck tire. Echowood is a group of pragmatic idealists – everything from writers to cartoonists, carpenters to ceramic artists, web designers to organic farmers. We're working to develop a new way to live based on living in community with others while doing our part to bring the planet into a state of ecological balance. We're building a rural community where people can have meaningful, lasting friendships and fulfilling work.
 
We are working to create a sustainable culture outside of our current norms of social alienation and loneliness, meaningless, dead-end jobs, waste, and mass consumerism. Using our creativity and individuality, we work to build a better life through cooperation rather than competition. We're learning how to help each other out and to combine our individual strengths into a community that’s only boundaries are our imaginations.
 
We strive to be as self-supporting as possible using both traditional and modern technologies and our own “do it yourself” sustainable systems wherever possible, always moving toward self-sufficiency and environmental responsibility through reuse, salvage, recycling, conservation, and renewable resources. Echowood is located one hour southeast of Austin, Texas, on 23 acres in a rural area of rolling farm and ranch land. Our land has forested areas, large trees, pastures and a pond for swimming. Because the community is relatively new (started in April, 2007), we are still developing many of our facilities. There are currently two houses and a cluster of smaller buildings, a poultry yard, and an organic garden. The plan is to have: a larger wood shop, a mechanic's and metal working shop, a ceramics studio, a stained glass studio, a large domed lodge as the center of community activities, small bungalows to house each member, a goat barn, an outdoor music venue, and a sandy beach area at the pond, etc.