We’re building a forever home for rescued elephants — 150 acres of meadow, forest and spring-fed lake in central Florida — with a small wellness retreat alongside it that pays for their care. The plan is drawn. Every building has a name. All it needs now is one hundred and fifty founding members who want to help make it real.
The Founding 150 are the people who make Lovie’s Haven happen. One hundred and fifty founding memberships — a $7.5 million raise — buy the land, build the sanctuary itself — the habitat, the water, the barns, the farm — and open the café and first huts, so the herd's care has income from day one. The rest of the estate follows through the capital campaign the founders make possible. And in return, founders receive something we’ll never offer again: a lifetime pass to every class we teach, two seats at the annual Founders’ Gala, and a complimentary stay on the estate every single year, for life.
The class pass, the gala, and a one-night stay every year, for life.
The class pass, the gala, and a two-night stay every year, for life.
The class pass, the gala, and a three-night stay every year, for life.
Is this better for the elephants?
Before we build anything, book anything, or spend a dollar, we ask that question first. If the answer is no, we don't do it. It's why you'll never see rides, shows, bathing or petting here — and why, when the herd wanders down to graze in front of the pavilion most evenings, it's because they love that meadow, not because anyone led them there.
Our care team keeps a daily log, and we publish it exactly as they write it — the golden evenings when the herd grazes right up to the pavilion glass, and the quiet mornings when they'd rather stay in the forest. Both are part of real life here, so you get to read both.
The herd came down from the forest grove to the watering hole while the sunrise class held their last pose. Twenty-two people breathing very quietly. Nobody moved an elephant. Nobody had to.
Meera took the far wallow for forty minutes, in full view of the meadow. Guests at the café watched the mud fly from two hundred yards away. Nobody called anybody over; nobody needed to be closer.
Foot care for Ruth, ninety minutes, voluntary. She chose to come in and she chose to leave. Six guests watched the session from the barn viewing wall and asked good questions afterwards.
Rain all day. The herd stood out in the middle of the view meadow anyway, clearly loving every minute of it. We canceled the fire pit. The elephants kept their plans.
A hundred and fifty acres in central Florida: a conservation zone and a forest grove for the elephants, a lake with its own watering hole, the open Elephant View Meadow, and the retreat threaded carefully along the water's edge.
Guests live on the lake side — the Sky View Pavilion at the centre, the lakeside cabins and the guest village around it, the Sunset Dock for the end of the day. The herd's ground runs north and east: the grove, the conservation zone, the watering hole, and the open meadow they cross between them.
That's the quiet secret of the whole design. Elephants love meadows and water, so we put the pavilion where it faces the meadow and the water. When the herd wanders into view — and most days they do — it's because this is where they love to be.
~130 acresHabitat, meadow & conservation
~20 acresRetreat, farm & village
Our elephants arrive from circuses, roadside display, riding camps and closed zoos. Our guests arrive from burnout, grief, anxiety and the kind of year that doesn’t end cleanly.
An elephant's recovery and a person's are not the same thing, and we would never claim they were. But it turns out they call for a lot of the same medicine: space, quiet, time, good food, no demands, and nobody checking whether you're better yet.
Circuses, riding camps, roadside attractions, neglect, decades of being useful
Burnout, stress, anxiety, grief, a transition you didn’t choose
Land, water, shade, silence, an unhurried day, and no obligation to perform
The Sky View Pavilion is the heart of the estate — wellness, events and dining under one timber-and-glass roof, set where the gardens end and the Elephant View Meadow begins. Yoga at sunrise. Long-table lunches. Sound baths after dark. Talks by the people who care for the herd.
Most evenings the herd is grazing somewhere in the view. Some evenings they come all the way down to the watering hole. Either way, it tends to be everyone's favorite hour of the day.
Sunrise yogaPavilion, east wall open
PilatesReformer and mat, twelve places
Walk & interpretationBoundary trail with a keeper
Restorative practiceLong holds, low light
Sound bathBowls, gongs, forty minutes
Evening talkA keeper tells one elephant's story
Fire pit & starsLit every night, no program, just stars
Eleven huts and bungalows in the trees and over the water. Wood, linen, stone, no televisions. Breakfast at the café, practice at the pavilion, silence after nine.
From $1,060 a night The rooms
Wellness memberships for people who live nearby, and four-night hosted retreats for those who don't. Small groups. Nothing rushed.
From $95 a month Wellness
Twelve weddings a year in the Sky View Pavilion and on the meadow, up to a hundred and twenty guests. Elegant, contained, and quiet by nine.
From $15,000 Weddings
The elephants are not the only residents. Winnie’s Farm, on the east side of the estate, takes in rescued goats, sheep, donkeys and elderly horses — animals with nowhere else to go and, unlike the herd, a real enthusiasm for company.
It's the one place at Lovie’s Haven where hands-on is the whole idea. The elephants have more than earned their peace and quiet. The goats never got that memo — they'll be waiting for you at the gate.
Goats, sheep, donkeys, pigs, chickens and retired horses, all rescues
Feeding rounds with the farm team, open to guests, boots provided
Collected daily and served at the café by seven
Along the service road, past the guest village, inside the perimeter
When a sanctuary's income depends on visitors seeing animals, the animals slowly end up working for a living again. We never want that pressure anywhere near our herd, so we built the income around everything else instead.
Cabins, memberships, retreats, weddings, the café, the shop, the farm, donations, grants and sponsorships all carry the cost of care together. Not one dollar of it depends on an elephant performing, posing, or taking a single step she didn't choose to take.
We're not trying to build the biggest sanctuary in the world. We're trying to build the one that's still here, still funded, and still keeping its promises when the elephants we rescue today grow old.
Come once as a guest. Stay for life as a protector.