New Harmony in Indiana is one of the most peaceful and idyllic places that I’ve ever visited. Shae discovered it when reading an article online that listed something like the top 40 things to do in Indiana and New Harmony was in the top three.
We therefore made an effort to include it within our Indiana plans while on our 50 state road trip and we’re so glad that we did. Here’s more about New Harmony and why we loved it so much.
(Side note: this isn’t a sponsored post as we don’t write those. We paid for our stay, food and drink ourselves – if it seems like this ends up being a gushing review, it’s because we genuinely loved it there.)
History Of New Harmony
New Harmony is a small town in the southwest corner of Indiana, on the border of Illinois and also close to the southwest corner of Kentucky. It has a current population of ~700 people and was founded in 1814 by George Rapp and other members of the Harmony Society who named it Harmony.
They were Lutherans who’d split off from the church and sought to create a communal living situation. That lasted for a decade, after which many of the Harmonists left Indiana for Pennsylvania, with the remainder leaving the following year.
After the Harmonists left Harmony in 1825, Robert Owen also sought to create a communal living situation in the town focused on social reform, calling it New Harmony. His attempt was unsuccessful, lasting only two years before conflicting opinions and approaches of the town’s various groups meant it split up into smaller communities.
Despite the two unsuccessful attempts at communal living and the fact that it’s been close to two hundred years since that last attempt, New Harmony has retained a sense of community. Walking around the town, both of us were struck by how peaceful it was. It’s not just that it was quiet and relaxed; it had some other kind of vibe that I can’t put my finger on, but it felt like the kind of place where any kind of concerns you might have would melt away while you’re there, like their attempts in the 1800s of creating some kind of utopia had somehow lived on in the town.
New Harmony Buildings
The side streets surrounding Main Street very much reminded me of Williamsburg, VA, with wide avenues in some parts and historic but well-kept up homes.
New Harmony covers just under one square mile and so it’s a very walkable community. There are many homes and other buildings from the 1800s you can see while wandering around. There are also guided tours that you can take, but we didn’t end up participating in one of those.
There are still several log cabins that can be found around the town, some of which date back to the 1700s before it became known as Harmony and subsequently New Harmony.
Most of these cabins can only be entered when on an official walking tour (we were able to get photos of the interiors through the windows). There was one cabin though – the Weber cabin – which is unlocked for all New Harmony visitors. This ended up being one of the most fascinating parts of our time in New Harmony.
The reason why is because it has an Oculus feature – not to be confused with Meta’s virtual reality headset. As a sign outside the cabin described it:
Oculus, a camera obscura, was built in November 2010 by artist-in-residence Jim Buchanan, along with the help of five students from the university of Southern Indiana.
Instructions: To view the Oculus, walk inside the Weber log cabin. Sit or stand along the wall with the door without blocking the aperture (hole) in the door. With the door closed, wait several minutes for your eyes to adjust to the change in light. Within several minutes you will see the landscape outside of the cabin projected on the interior of the cabin through the aperture
The photo above shows what’s outside the Weber log cabin; here’s what it looks like inside once your eyes have adjusted to the darkness. As you can see, the image is flipped upside down, similar to how cameras work.
It was like watching an upside down movie, with trees swaying in the breeze, visitors walking along the sidewalk, cars passing by, etc. This video hopefully gives a sense of what it’s like; in the first few seconds you can see people walking along:
New Harmony Stores
New Harmony has a quaint Main Street with lovely architecture and featuring boutique stores, restaurants and bars.
The hotel we were staying in had soap from New Harmony Soap Company which has a store on Main St.
One of my favorite stores there was Just Looking/BackBeats. This was a used bookstore/record store/other stuff store which was laid out in a very organized way.
I had fun looking through the vinyl and ended up buying Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mine by The Doors – an album I’d had on vinyl in my teens (I liked collecting rarer vinyl back then). It’s a compilation album with a couple of songs that were never on their albums and I have fond memories listening to it back then, so I bought it during our visit so that I’ve got it once our road trip ends.
The candy shop in town has the same owner as Capers Emporium.
We got chatting to the lovely people in Capers Emporium who shared more details with us about the town, showed us photos they’ve taken from past events and more. One of the events they highlighted was a firefly festival that takes place in June each year. New Harmony gets hundreds of thousands of fireflies during that time, so we’d love to return to experience that as I can imagine it’s a magical experience.
Roofless Church
One of the most notable structures in New Harmony is the Roofless Church.
The church is in a large walled area with an ornate entrance.
I have to admit, I’m a little confused by the structure’s name. It’s called a Roofless Church, but to me all it has is a roof – it’s more like a wall-less church.
That said, it doesn’t stop it from having a fascinating architectural design.
Although it looks like there’s a hole in the center of the roof, that was more like a skylight which was covered with Perspex or glass.
Labyrinths
Other uncommon features in New Harmony include a couple of labyrinths. These maze-like constructions were created as a kind of spiritual pilgrimage that those living in and visiting New Harmony could participate in to meditate.
One of the labyrinths – the Cathedral Labyrinth – appears to be a fairly new construction and is on the opposite side of North St to the Atheneum.
This is a 2D labyrinth, with the pattern mapped out on the ground.
The second labyrinth – the Harmonist Labyrinth – can be found on the south side of New Harmony along Main St just before you enter the town. Its hedgerows give it more of a maze-like feel.
This labyrinth was built 85 years ago and is located close to where the town’s original labyrinth was constructed.
In the center of the Cathedral Labyrinth is a small building. Inside, its roof has ten sections which appear to be guiding principles from the original attempts at communal living.
New Harmony Restaurants, Bars & Coffee Shop
Seeing as New Harmony has a population of ~700, it doesn’t have a ton of restaurants and bars. Having said that, there are several places where you can get something to eat and/or drink, so we decided to check out each of them during our weekend in New Harmony.
The Yellow Tavern
On our first night we went for dinner at The Yellow Tavern; it’s easy to work out why it’s called that.
The Yellow Tavern was pretty busy that night, so we sat at the bar for our meal.
Shae had a glass of wine, while I ordered a porter from Quaff On Brewing Co, an Indiana brewery located south of Indianapolis. It wasn’t the best porter I’ve ever had, but it wasn’t bad.
Here’s the food menu for The Yellow Tavern:
You might’ve noticed that on the second page there’s a ‘brain sandwich’. Yep, that is exactly what it sounds like and is apparently an Indiana “delicacy”. We weren’t feeling brave enough to try it that night, but we did end up going somewhere to order one a couple of days later. Check out this post to find out what we thought of eating brain sandwich for the first time!
We did both order from that sandwich part of the menu though; Shae getting a ribeye sandwich, with me getting the bratwurst. Both of our meals were tasty.
Red Geranium/Grapevine Bar
Red Geranium restaurant is part of New Harmony Inn Resort & Conference Center, the hotel we were staying at (more about that shortly).
Its dining menu was a little pricey for our $125 per day road trip budget, so we just stopped in at its Grapevine Bar for a quick drink to check it out.
As is often the case, Shae got a glass of red wine and I had a beer while we chatted with the friendly server.
Sara’s Wine Bar
After wandering around town for a while, we stopped for a drink at Sara’s Wine Bar.
We had Truffles with us, so we sat outside on their patio as that’s dog-friendly and it was a surprisingly warm and sunny day for being late-February.
What was particularly nice was that they offered beer flights, so I got one of those to check out a few different beers from Indiana breweries.
We had an enjoyable time sitting outside at Sara’s Wine Bar as we first got chatting to a local resident who was out walking his pup Lucy, then to a group of four people visiting New Harmony for the afternoon from nearby Evansville.
Say’s
After dropping Truffles back off at the hotel, we went out to dinner at Say’s which is attached to Sara’s Wine Bar.
For an appetizer Shae ordered their cheesy onion flatbread bites.
Breaded pork tenderloin sandwiches are an Indiana staple, so I decided to order that for dinner and it was delicious.
Shae meanwhile ordered the taco salad as her entrée which she enjoyed too.
The Main Cafe
Before leaving New Harmony the next day, we went for breakfast at The Main Cafe, a cute diner on Main St.
Here’s their menu:
Steph’s Mess and their cinnamon rolls were both tempting, but I ended up getting the country fried steak-n-eggs which was the perfect comfort food.
Shae went for the breakfast platter and chose scrambled eggs, bacon and a biscuit as her egg, meat and bread options.
Black Lodge Coffee Roasters
We weren’t quite done though as there was another place to visit before leaving New Harmony. While having a drink at Sara’s Wine Bar the previous day, we’d also chatted to Alex and his husband who own Black Lodge Coffee Roasters.
After checking out of the hotel, we made a quick stop at this charming coffee shop.
Although the decor was lovely inside, we decided to order our drinks and have them outside as it was yet another beautiful day.
Fire & Ice
The one place that we didn’t get to check out was Fire & Ice as that seemed to be closed during our stay. I’m not sure if it’s only open seasonally or if they just didn’t happen to be open that weekend, so that’ll be one for another time.
New Harmony Inn Resort & Conference Center
We booked our weekend stay at the New Harmony Inn Resort & Conference Center. Here’s our full review, but as a quick summary it was a very nice hotel. Our room had a four poster bed and the bathroom had soaps from the New Harmony Soap Company.
The hotel grounds were lovely too.
New Harmony has a number of bed and breakfasts and camping options available too – you can find more details about all of those here.
Final Thoughts
Our two nights in New Harmony felt like a vacation. The small town was incredibly peaceful and idyllic, with friendly people, interesting things to see and do and a fascinating history. We’d highly recommend it as a great spot for a weekend getaway, or an even longer stay if you’d like some extended downtime.
How interesting! So glad to read your wonderful review of this unique place. Thank you!
Thanks!