Paul Chew is a local organic grower, woodcarver and educator.
He grew up in Los Angeles and Santa Monica, but his family traveled and camped a good deal. At seven years old his family spent a year at the Southwestern Research Station in Portal, Arizona.
He attended a one room school house with one teacher. When he was a senior in high school his parents came to Athens, Ga. where his father did sabbatical work in Ecology.
Paul attended Antioch College in Yellow Springs Ohio for a year but then came back to Georgia where he attended the University of Georgia in Industrial Arts and later Technology Education. He taught middle and high school in a rural county.
Leaving teaching he started an organic farm and built his first house in Georgia. After meeting his future wife at John C. Campbell Folk School, he left Georgia to move to the mountains and live in an 1839 log house. He now lives off the grid with his cat Gypsy on 32 acres just west of Otto in a remote valley. He and his now ex-wife divided their land between themselves.
Paul and Gypsy are currently building an Earth-Bermed/Living Roof Solar house. Gypsy does most of the supervising.
Paul’s 1/5 acre intensive organic garden provides abundant greens, salad mix and other veggies to the local community through the Franklin Tailgate market and Mountain Valley Health Food Store.
He teaches woodworking to youngsters at John C. Campbell Folk School, the Macon County Summer Camp Program, and more recently at the Historic Cowee School. He also makes wooden spoons from wood from his property in his spare time.
On his farm he has hosted dozens of young adults interested in learning to live a more sustainable lifestyle. He is currently working on establishing an Intentional Community on his property.
To learn more about Paul read: I like to think of myself as a farmer, For the love of woodworking and Paul’s blog