[1] Founded in 1977 by a group of students and the biology professor Dr. Robert W. Alrutz, it is an evolving experiment in learning through living.
In its core values and activities, The Homestead has much in common with intentional communities like Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, Sandhill Farm, and Cobb Hill CoHousing.
It differs from these communities in its direct connection to a liberal arts college, and its lack of long-term residents.
[3] The Homestead is located on about 10 acres (40,000 m2) in a wooded valley; students typically walk or bike the one mile (1.6 km) to the Denison main campus.
Manual labor is an integral part of life at The Homestead, as residents must haul and split wood, tend gardens and livestock, maintain and repair buildings, and cook.
Alrutz and the students jointly prepared a formal proposal, and won approval (including a startup loan) from the board of trustees.
In order to keep up with changing building codes, students, faculty, and administration agreed that the best way to maintain the viability of the Homestead in the future was a major update.
Heat for all cabins is now generated by an external wood-gasification boiler and transmitted via underground hot water pipes.
A new photovoltaic system was installed that generates more than 10 times the original electrical capacity and maintains a net output onto the grid.
Several Homesteaders, including Ryan Culligan, Juan Pablo Torres, and Henry Jochem, helped build the archive during the summer of 2012.