Our Community gardens covers the landscape of zip codes within 43205….

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In the fall of 2013 Jim Bruner & Rick Riley bought an 1868 Italianate house and two vacant lots in downtown Columbus’ historic Olde Towne East neighborhood. The house had been abandoned three times in its 150 year history – most recently from 2009-2013 and the two attached plots had houses (and their stone foundations remain) but were now vacant and wildly overgrown but were blessed with south facing sunlight. There was potential but a great deal of work needed to be done.
Here is a quick blog post that neatly summarizes that original journey.

From 2013 – 2019 the property was converted from weed and brush infested plots into a showcase of sustainability with a primary mission to build infrastructure, and offset food costs by 40%. The house also needed a complete retrofit from electric to HVAC to raising the 3” sunken northern foundations. Every corner of the space needed adapting and work.

The name Mezzacello comes from our vision of recreating Monticello, but with better tech and a smaller footprint (little Monticello). It is an urban garden, farm and ecological laboratory for food science, ecology, robotics, automation, and raising animals. In 2020 Mezzacello moved into phase II; not just a 21st Century urban farm, modeled after Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, but as a teaching and learning lab for how to efficiently and sustainably convert any built environment into a sustainable enclosed ecosystem, organically.

Mezzacello is also a learning lab located in downtown Columbus. Summer camps, online resources, tours and even this website are leveraged to this purpose. Areas of expertise are in culture and planning for gardens, ecosystems maintenance and development, energy production (wind and solar), robotics and automation. Our impact has been profound and extensive.