Ben Bitner

I’ve finally found myself in the process of securing land and designing a sustainable home and farm system in Northwest Arkansas. I am planning a phased approach to construction and implementation of shelter, crop, and livestock systems.

The land I am most interested in is roughly 10 acres of primarily woods on the northwest slope of a hill. Based on my analysis the slope is not detrimental to solar beyond a 10% to 15% drop in exposure from standard. The elevation gain across the property makes micro hydro a viable solution as well.

I am still deciding on whether to move forward as a solo operation, or to bring on one or two people to share in the process. Ideally if the person or people are sharing in the process I would like there to be a shared ownership with a team based approach. As such, I have created a questionnaire to get to know potential partners, as well as provided my own answers to pass along to those submitting their answers. From there I would look at getting together in person or virtually if needed. If conversations flow well and things look promising we could schedule some camping or other opportunities to get together know one another more thoroughly.

About me, I am a 41 year old male, divorced with twin 22 year old boys that have no interest in any of this. I have an 8 month old border collie mix and have recently relocated to Arkansas to be closer to family and to also have the opportunity to build out a property. I currently work as a project manager for a home builder and have experience as a general contractor, as well as multiple building and finishing trades. I have completed full gut remodel and reframing of existing homes and built high end homes from the ground up. I have a good deal of knowledge on building efficiently and designing passive systems. I have a good deal of concept design in livestock and crop systems but little hands on time. This is a skill set that would pair well with the operation. I have a decent knowledge of energy and mechanical systems with experience wiring and plumbing, just not necessarily off grid energy systems. This is another skill set that would pair well with the operation.

My plan is to move my camper out to live on site as soon as possible. There is currently no water, sewer, or power on site.

My current phased implementation plan is as follows:

1. Gate
2. Drive
3. Perimeter fence around homesite
4. Doghouse
5. Power storage and supply
6. Heating and Water storage and treatment
8. Camper enclosure
9. Mechanical room
10. Water flow control and collection
11. Permanent shelter phase one
12. Food production

If this idea excites you, and you have an interest in seeing if this is a fit for you, email sustainedozarklife@gmail.com with a brief introduction of yourself and I’ll pass along the questionnaire. Once I receive the filled out questionnaire I will pass along my answers to the same questions and we will mutually decide to move forward or not with further communication and gatherings.

Thank you,
Ben

Anne Miller wrote:Welcome to the forum!  

In my experience finding other is disappointing.

Maybe I missed it, so how much land do you have and is it in Missouri?

I am looking in Northwest Arkansas although I’ve looked in southern Missouri as well. Right now I’m hoping a deal goes through on roughly 10 acres.

I understand the disappointment, that’s my hesitation on brining in others.

I’m just keeping up with a longer schedule than I would like.

It’s been the longest beginning, so long as any beginning includes all parts before commencing the actual plan. The false starts, the busy life, and the not meant to be. It has made for one long beginning of my plan to develop a sustainable property.

I attended my PDC in Southern Missouri in 2018. It was incredible and left me with so many tools to complete my goal. But life got too busy, and as I had finally begun in 2023  the work on version 1.0 on my 3.75 acres, life threw a curve ball and I found myself living on a small city lot with no good exposure. But it didn’t kill the dream.

I wanted to take a holistic approach to my eventual property and have always had an interest in building science to go along with my career as a pm building homes. I learned various methods to increase efficiencies in homes as well as alternative construction methods and materials. I made many mock up plans of ultra efficient homes built as sustainably as possible. So I thought the next step of the property would be crop and livestock management design to create as efficient of a water, energy, and resource system designed to work with the land around it. This is where I am at a weakness. I have read many different ideas and systems of livestock and crop management, but my personal experience has been limited to bees, a few peach trees, one of which did actually fruit before borers took it down. I’ve also had chickens and ducks with success but gardens destroyed by cats and deer. My cats thought bulbs were buried treasure.

Fast forward to early 2026 when life was seemingly going well, but I was no where near my ultimate goal, and didn’t feel I was living my life in alignment with myself. So I changed it. I had always gone on vacation to Arkansas to visit family and enjoy all the lakes and rivers and trails. My sister and parents now live in Arkansas and so I found a job, bought a small camper, adopted a somewhat crazy 6 month old border collie beagle mix, and relocated to Northwest Arkansas.

I have a few properties I’m looking at and I’m finally starting to put together both the phasing of the project and overall design. The property will be around 7-10 acres. The phasing is important because I intend to move my camper onto the property and live in it while I build the home and property out. This will be fully off grid, assembled in phases.

The amount of work ahead is intimidating as I will be managing projects during the week and squeezing in what I can on weekends and evenings.

So I’m wondering if I find a partner or maybe two partners to tackle this endeavor. I’ve rebuilt a couple of homes solo previously, working evenings and weekends to complete one. I’m confident in the building aspect but the greenhouses and livestock? Could I manage those as well? Is my timeline pushed too far out solo, or could I find the people that would have an interest in collectively working through design, build, and implementation of a holistic system?

If I did stay solo where would I go about getting feedback on my overall design, which forum would that fit best? Or is it best to break it down into the individual aspects that would make up the overall system?

Overthinking as usual I’m sure, but the project manager in me doesn’t like rework.