Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin’s lab
Few places in psychedelic history carry the same weight as the Shulgin Farm tucked away in the Bay Area hills of Lafayette, California. Hidden down a quiet dirt road, the property served as the home, laboratory, and gathering place of legendary chemist Dr. Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin and psychotherapist Ann Shulgin. These two figures, alongside the community they stewarded over decades, continue to shape modern psychedelic science, therapy, and culture in ways many people are only beginning to fully appreciate. Now, thanks to an ambitious preservation effort led by their daughter Wendy Tucker and the Shulgin Foundation, the farm is being transformed into a living testament to the past, present, and future of psychedelic science and culture.
"It wasn't enough to simply preserve the buildings," explains Wendy Tucker, daughter of Ann Shulgin and chair of the Shulgin Foundation. "We wanted to preserve the spirit of the place."
The drive to preserve the farms legacy while evolving its ability to continue shaping the next chapter of psychedelics sits at the heart of the Shulgin Foundation mission mission.
For decades, the farm functioned as an intellectual crossroads where scientists, therapists, artists, students, and curious explorers gathered to exchange ideas. Sasha synthesized more than 500 novel psychoactive compounds in the basement laboratory, meticulously documenting their chemistry and effects. But Wendy emphasizes that the property's true legacy extends beyond molecules.
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"The community that grew up around Sasha and Ann was extraordinary," she says. "People came there to connect, to learn, and to have meaningful conversations."
Rather than freezing the property in time behind velvet ropes, the foundation envisions a living campus where those conversations continue. Educational workshops, university collaborations, lectures, community gatherings, and cultural events are already taking place on the property, with the goal of making the farm an enduring hub for psychedelic education and dialogue.
The preservation effort itself has become a community project. Wendy founded the Shulgin Foundation in 2023 to facilitate the transfer of the property from the Shulgin family into nonprofit stewardship. A fundraising initiative known as the "Seed Crystal Stewards" program draws inspiration from one of Sasha's favorite chemical metaphors: a tiny seed crystal that catalyzes the formation of something much larger. In many ways, Wendy says, Sasha himself served as that seed crystal for today's psychedelic movement.
The foundation's vision also seeks to preserve Ann Shulgin's immense contributions, which Wendy believes are too often overshadowed by Sasha's reputation as a chemist.
"My mother brought the psychological dimension," Wendy explains. "She was deeply grounded in Jungian psychology and became an extraordinary psychedelic therapist."
Revelers at a 4/20 picnic at the Shulgin Farm in 2024
Ann helped shape the emotional and therapeutic framework behind the experiences documented in PiHKAL and TiHKAL. She encouraged Sasha to publish their work, believing both the chemistry and the human stories deserved to be shared. Together they formed a partnership in which science and psychology complemented one another—a balance that became central to their lasting influence.
Visitors today still encounter much of the home as Sasha and Ann left it. The laboratory remains intact. The living room where Ann conducted countless therapy sessions continues to welcome guests. Rather than recreating history, the foundation hopes visitors experience it firsthand.
Looking ahead, Wendy envisions the farm serving another important purpose: becoming neutral ground where difficult conversations about the future of psychedelics can unfold.
As legalization, commercialization, pharmaceutical development, underground practice, and Indigenous traditions increasingly intersect, she hopes the farm can provide space for respectful dialogue between differing perspectives.
In many ways, that aspiration reflects the values Sasha and Ann embodied throughout their lives. They encouraged curiosity over certainty, education over dogma, and conversation over division.
Preserving the Shulgin farm is ultimately about much more than protecting an iconic property. It is about safeguarding a culture of inquiry that helped shape the modern psychedelic renaissance—and ensuring future generations inherit not only Sasha's remarkable chemistry and Ann's therapeutic wisdom, but also the spirit of openness, hospitality, and intellectual generosity that made the farm one of the most influential gathering places in psychedelic history.
