It began with elephants. It became about Lovies.
I've loved elephants my whole life — the kind of love where every trip I've ever daydreamed about ends at a sanctuary somewhere in Asia. Lovies was my cousin and my best friend. When I lost her, all that love needed somewhere to go. This is the story of where it went.
First came a foundation in her honor.
She passed away far too soon, and I did what people do with a grief that size: I built something that could hold it. The Lovies Foundation exists for the benefit of her daughter — so the person she loved most will always be taken care of.
Everything on this site is an extension of that foundation — same name, same reason, bigger dream. But before there was a haven, before there was a herd, the foundation's first work was smaller and softer: storybooks.
Storybooks that grow up with a child.
The foundation writes children's books — animal adventures, the kind I would have read aloud to Lovies’ daughter myself. Every dollar they earn belongs to her future.
The proceeds go into a high-yield savings account and stay there, growing, until she turns twenty-one. Money like that can change a life or dent one, so the foundation prepares its children for it years in advance — and only hands over the funds when they're ready to hold them. It began with one child, Lovies’ daughter, and it works the same way for every child the foundation takes on.
Taking care of her daughter was the foundation's first promise. Lovie’s Haven is its second — the same care, the same patience, the same long view, turned toward the animals I've loved my whole life. And the moment I let myself dream that big, I had to face what elephant care actually costs.
Animal adventuresChildren's books written and published by the foundation
High-yield savingsEvery dollar deposited and left to grow, untouched, until twenty-one
Financial-literacy booksSent to the children every few years, matched to their age
Classes, then a conversationRequired financial-literacy classes and a sit-down with a financial advisor — what's there, and how to make it last — before the funds are released
The problem I couldn't stop thinking about
An elephant costs somewhere between seventy and a hundred thousand dollars a year to keep well. Food, veterinary care, foot care, land, water, fencing, staff, insurance, and the long tail of geriatric medicine for an animal that may live another three decades.
Most sanctuaries cover those costs by selling access. It starts gently — a viewing platform, a feeding station — and little by little, an animal ends up being moved, held, cleaned or coaxed on a schedule that belongs to a ticket instead of to her. Nobody sets out to do that to an animal they love. The bills do it for them.
I wanted to build a place where the bills could never, ever reach the elephants' day.
Fund the sanctuary with something people already want.
People will happily pay for rest — a quiet cabin, a sunrise yoga class in a glass pavilion, an unhurried week, a wedding somewhere that truly means something. And here's the beautiful part: none of that asks an elephant to do anything at all.
So we flipped the model. The retreat is the business; the sanctuary is the reason for everything. Guests come here to rest and heal, and every night they stay helps an elephant do the same. Most evenings the herd grazes past the pavilion glass — but only ever because they feel like it.
What we promise
Every elephant who arrives here has made her last journey. Nobody will ever ask her to work, perform, or pose again. She can spend her days exactly how she pleases — social or solitary, out in the meadow or hidden in the trees — and she will be deeply loved either way.
And we promise the people who come here to rest will leave carrying a little of that love with them.
Rehabilitation for elephants.
Restoration for people.
There are two Lovies here now.
Our first elephant spent thirty-one years in a traveling circus. In the fall of 2023, a truck door opened and she stepped out — slowly, on tired feet — onto land that would never ask her for anything again. She had a name waiting for her before she ever arrived.
She stood at the treeline for four days before she trusted it enough to walk in. We watched her do it, and when she finally disappeared into the trees she was carrying my cousin's name with her — and making it a home.
It's on everything now: the haven, the foundation, and Lovie’s residence on the north lake, where our family lives year-round on the land we protect.
I needed a place like this once. That's how I know you might.
Grief taught me something I didn't expect to learn: when your world falls apart, what you need most is a place that asks nothing of you. Somewhere quiet and green where you can breathe, rest, and let time move at the speed of sunrises for a while. I didn't have that place when I lost Lovies. So I'm building it.
That's why restoration for people isn't just the business that funds the sanctuary — it's the other half of the promise. Some guests will come here to celebrate. Plenty will come carrying something heavy: a loss, a hard year, a tired heart. Nobody here will ask, nothing will be scheduled over your quiet, and the peace is real because nothing on this land — human or elephant — is performing.
An elephant recovering from thirty years in a circus and a person recovering from the hardest year of their life are not the same, and we'd never say they were. But they heal in the same conditions: room to move, nothing demanded of them, and time measured in sunrises instead of sessions. That's the whole design. Two species, one set of needs, 150 beautiful acres.
Come once as a guest. Stay for life as a protector.
Everything here started with one person I loved. She'd have adored knowing you were coming.
— Lovies’ cousin, and the founder of everything that carries her name