The Hollow Bone Initiative
Shope Creek was the proving ground. Asheville will be Hollow Bone's first permanent home — a living experiment connecting land, sanctuary, building, campaign and community.
“Camp Mary was the gathering. Asheville becomes the experiment.”
The Asheville Declaration
Hollow Bone is not tied to one property — but it has chosen Asheville as the location for its first permanent sanctuary.
Several properties are being explored, including OM Sanctuary in Asheville and Paint Rock Farm near Hot Springs. Each offers a different expression of the vision. No frontrunner has been named; the conversations and diligence remain open. The regional commitment does not.
The land may change. The expression may change. The purpose remains.
Why Asheville?
A Culture of Healing
A deep community of integrative practitioners, therapists, bodyworkers, herbalists, educators and facilitators exploring new approaches to restoration.
A Creative City Surrounded by Nature
Artists, musicians, writers and storytellers live within minutes of mountains, forests, rivers and protected land. Asheville naturally holds both creativity and healing.
A Place Rebuilding
Hurricane Helene changed Western North Carolina. A region rebuilding itself can become a place where people come to rebuild their lives.
The People Are Already Here
The founding relationships that brought Hollow Bone into form are rooted in Asheville. The circle does not need to be recruited from somewhere else.
The Asheville Vision in Six Parts
Each piece stands on its own. Together they describe what the Hollow Bone Initiative looks like when it leaves the mountain and enters the city.
The Proving Ground
Shope Creek Wilderness
131 acres outside Asheville where Stephen and Mary Sedmak opened their family land to children, teachers, artists, healers and seekers. The experience that proved the vision — and the demonstration Hollow Bone now carries forward into the world.
ShopeCreekWilderness.com ↗A Candidate Sanctuary
OM Sanctuary
An existing nonprofit retreat property of roughly 54 acres, 1.5 miles from downtown Asheville — protected forest, trails, gardens, wellness spaces and lodging for about 35 guests. One aligned possibility under consideration; no frontrunner has been named.
Explore the Sanctuary vision ↗A Candidate Home of Camp Mary
Paint Rock Farm
A 150-acre retreat and farm on the French Broad River near Hot Springs, NC — cabins, barn, bathhouse, glamping and a protected conservation tract. It already behaves like the temporary village Camp Mary revealed and is under confidential working evaluation as one possible future home of Camp Mary.
Read the working vision ↗Visit the existing site ↗The Old Isis Theatre
743 Haywood Road
A rent-or-buy opportunity to reactivate West Asheville's living cultural house — music, film, food, faith, freedom and public conversation under one Art Deco roof. The building the Asheville vision can point to and say: here is a room.
Read the opportunity play ↗40 Nights in Asheville
Billy Loves Willie
The campaign that gives the Asheville plan its first unmistakable public story. The final countdown — artists, music, conversations, food, technology and community, forty nights in the city before the public launch of Hollow Bone.
Enter the revival ↗The Docuseries
Stay Curious
The series by Jackson Averett — the living archive of what Stephen and Mary built at Shope Creek, the arc of the movement, and the search for a permanent home. The moment a vision outgrew its proving ground, captured in real time.
Watch the story ↗The Through Line
The land holds the vision.
The sanctuary gives it a home.
The building gives it a room.
The campaign gives it a voice.
The city gives it a life.