Who We Are

Our Passion

To help people live more ecologically.

This company sprang from a deep passion for the planet, the people who live on it, and trying to make the two more compatible.  Home Ecology is a green general store based in Shelburne, Vermont and has been owned by business partners Holly Rae Taylor and Anne Taylor (no relation!) since 2009.

Holly Rae Taylor, the "compost maven", is a treehugging dirtlover and has pledged her allegiance to the soil!  Holly has a background in plant physiological ecology and commercial composting.  She is a radical composter, abstract artist, gardener, athlete, lapsed botanist, and backcountry enthusiast.

Anne Taylor, chef and midwife, is here to enjoy life and wants to help preserve the planet along the way.

Our Inspiration

Community...Nature...Deep Ecology...Ecological living...Biodiversity...Sustainability...Making connections...The poetry of old fashioned resourcefulness...Our grandmother’s recipes.

To us, these things are about driving less, cooking more, and stopping to smell the potted rosemary on your front porch.  It’s about maintaining bird feeders and bee hives, and preserving the harvest.  It’s teaching a young friend how to garden.  It’s swapping seeds and tomato starts in the spring, and living in harmony with the seasons and the soil.  It’s designing for beauty and sustainability and reducing our impact every day.  It means choosing local hand-crafted goods that are beautiful, durable, and valued enough to be maintained instead of thrown away.  And it definitely means composting!  Nature knows no waste so why should we?

Feeding the Food Cycle

Home Ecology isn't just another green store: we offer everything from yoga mats to eco-pet beds and body care, but we have a clear focus on the food cycle.  That's why we carry products for growing food, preserving food, preparing and serving food, and of course composting completes the cycle.  We believe that encouraging a full and healthy food cycle is a great way to promote environmental and personal well-being. 

Cutting Through the Greenwash

The folks at Home Ecology are committed to learning about the products we carry so we know who makes it, where it's made, how it's made, and what it's made from, plus the post-consumer life cycle.  We look for these qualities when choosing a product:

• Durable, Compostable or Recyclable
• Whether it helps us live more ecologically
• Ethical Manufacturing
• Safe
• Lovely
• Local vs imported
• Vendor stories/profiles

We advocate buying locally, reusing, and do-it-yourself consumerism. We also want to make it easier for you to find the best goods for your lifestyle.

The General Store Tradition Lives On!

As a native Vermonter Holly enjoyed growing up around the quintessential country general store, a place with creaky floorboards and a bell on the front door where you could find essentials like leather work gloves and a loaf of bread, and non-essentials (depending on your view) like penny candy and local crafts.  The general store was also a vital gathering place for the community.  That is our inspiration for Home Ecology and we hope you will join us in keeping this tradition alive by visiting us often online and in person!

When You Visit You'll Find Us Among Gems

Located in the heart of the village in Shelburne, Vermont just south of Burlington, Home Ecology is in an area teeming with wonderful places to visit.  Here are just a few gems in our immediate vicinity:

Flying Pig Books  Hands down, this is our favorite independent bookstore.  And they just happen to be our next door neighbors in the historic and beautifully restored Shelburne Inn (no longer an inn).  They have or will happily get any book you need!  Great author events, too!

The Shelburne Museum  This is a must-see with something for everyone.  About a half mile down the road from us the Shelburne Museum always has some new and fascinating exhibit and countless collections of comtemporary and 19th century art, Americana, and all kinds of crazy outbuildings buildings like a blacksmith shop and a 19th century one-room schoolhouse.  It even features a round barn and a fully restored steamboat!

Shelburne Farms This place will quite simply take your breath away with its amazing landscape, architecture, history, and family-oriented programs.  A former Vanderbilt Webb estate, it is now a membership-supported, nonprofit environmental education center and National Historic Landmark on the shores of Lake Champlain which boasts a working dairy farm with a herd of very cute Brown Swiss cows, an inn, a bread and cheese making facility, a school, and a visitors center with tours of the barnyard animals.

Village Wine and Coffee Right across the street from us, they have an impressive array of wines from around the world and world-class lattes!