Dickinsons Reach
A remote homestead residency in downeast Maine.
With our community at Dickinsons Reach, we offer a 4-6-week residency for self-directed learning, discovery, service and creativity at a Maine coastal homestead of great inspiration. We welcome families, individuals, and couples seeking a unique opportunity to deeply explore ideas, skills, and their own creativity.
Bill Coperthwaite’s Homestead:
A Fifty Year Experiment In Living
Live life off the grid in a close relationship to nature, among Bill’s libraries, tools and creations.
For half a century, this extraordinary place was the homestead of the late William Coperthwaite (author of A Handmade Life and the subject of a biography, A Man Apart). Live in his handmade concentric yurt home, with its extensive libraries and creations set amidst 4.5 miles of estuary, wetland, tidal pond and ocean. The property encompasses more than 500 acres, which itself is set within more than 2,000 acres of protected and sparsely settled landscape in coastal Downeast Maine. Here is the chance to face elemental living:
how to stay warm, how to gather water, how to question your life and how to find your better self. By living with these fundamentals, residents have the opportunity to gain insights into the larger systems of life and to contemplate their own place in the world. Experienced and enthusiastic applicants will receive much from this residency: encouragement on your life journey, time and solitude to explore ideas and skills, the joy and challenge of living with less, the fulfillment of living in a healthy, wild place with real challenges.
How to Apply
1. Read more about Bill Coperthwaite (if you haven’t already) at Insearchofsimplicity.net.
2. Fill out our application below. Explain how this residency serves you on your personal journey and serves us in our journey to care for Dickinsons Reach and to advance the legacy of William Coperthwaite. Your willingness to fully embrace its potential and to share your learning and observations with us and others is very important.
3. We offer this residency as an exchange; we share the place and the recipient shares their skills and experiences. You will be expected to complete a service project while there, to share your learning and experiences with others, and be an ambassador for the place. Fellows are responsible for bearing the full cost of travel and food.
“Borrow from cultures old and new, And with our imaginations, Blend those borrowings, To create new ways to live, That are simpler, gentler, More generous and beautiful.”
– WILLIAM S. COPERTHWAITE

A Man Apart
A book that is part family memoir, part biography about Bill Coperthwaite’s remarkable life – his dedication to his values of simplicity, beauty, democratic design and social change – and his influence on the authors and many others. A beautiful book, written and illustrated by Peter Forbes and Helen Whybrow.
