CORRECTED OCTOBER 8th: Local Sources tell us the The Myrtle Beach Mayor’s home was not purchased by the Meher Baba Foundation. It is, rather, the home next door in that neighborhood.
Added Clarity: Buzz Connor, Executive Director of the Meher Baba Spiritual Center reached out to us stating that the Sufism Reoriented branch of the Meher Baba group purchased this house. These folks are Meher Baba with all rights to attend the Spiritual Facility, however they are a subset of the Meher Baba movement.
A home on 35th Avenue North was purchased by the Meher Baba foundation for an undisclosed amount of money.
The Meher Baba Spiritual Retreat Center is another property owned by the group. The Spiritual Retreat is located in the BriarCliffe Acres area.
In 1941 Meher Baba sent two of His early Western disciples, Elizabeth Patterson and Norina Matchabelli, from India to the United States to find and establish a Center for His work there. Baba had been to the U.S. three times and He said of His coming to this country “there is greater energy in America than elsewhere, but most of this energy is misdirected. I will divert it into creative and spiritual channels.” Baba specified that the property which would become Meher Spiritual Center should meet five conditions:
The climate should be equable.
It should have more than ample water.
It should be virgin soil, never built upon.
It should be land that could be tilled.
And it should be given from the heart.
Elizabeth and Norina searched unsuccessfully throughout the country for almost three years. Then in 1943 while visiting her father in Myrtle Beach, Elizabeth remembered seeing, years earlier, a large tract of undisturbed oceanfront property. Upon revisiting the spot she felt with certainty that it was the place they had been looking for. The land, owned by Myrtle Beach Farms Company where her father, Simeon Chapin, was a partner, met the first four of Meher Baba’s conditions. Elizabeth’s father who had met Meher Baba and had deep respect for Elizabeth’s spiritual quest was eventually able to obtain the property and give it to her; she then offered it with love to Baba, fulfilling the final condition. Baba sanctioned the gift, and in 1944 work began to prepare the Center which would become His “home in the West.”
Baba Himself directed many details of the Center’s development; every phase of the work was done with the thought of pleasing Him. And He remained actively interested and involved with all Center activities throughout the years following His three visits in the 1950s.
OTHER MEHER BABA PROPERTIES
The Meher Baba foundation owns the land that Chapin Library is situated on. They also own the land of Chapin Park and the old Chapin Company Building across from the former SuperBlock in downtown Myrtle Beach.