Bryn Gweled is a small community in Upper Southampton Township,

Bucks County Bucks County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 646,538, making it the fourth-most populous county in Pennsylvania. Its county seat is Doylestown. The county is named after the English ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

. Described as an "intentionally

cooperative community An intentional community is a voluntary residential community designed to foster a high degree of group cohesiveness, social cohesion and teamwork. Such communities typically promote shared values or beliefs, or pursue a common vision, wh ...

",Bryn Gweled website
history section Bryn Gweled Homesteads consists of 78 privately owned homes on of collectively owned and managed land as well as a community center.Bryn Gweled website
/ref> The self-governing community was founded in 1940 by thirteen mostly

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

families from the Philadelphia area. The name of the community means "Hill of Vision" in Welsh. The community maintains its founders' vision of collective responsibility, modified consensus-style management, and racial diversity, and has been cited as an example of community-based decision-making in action. Some of the house architecture was created by various students of the famous American architect

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright Sr. (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed List of Frank Lloyd Wright works, more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key ...

such as Robert Forsythe Bishop and others who went on to have distinguished further careers. The homes are located on two acre plots, nestled into fields and forests, an oasis from the surrounding Philadelphia suburban sprawl. Several of the homes feature unique architectural elements such as heated floors, exposed wooden beams, wide open interior spaces, central fireplaces typical of

organic architecture Organic architecture is a philosophy of architecture which promotes harmony between human habitation and the natural world. This is achieved through design approaches that aim to be sympathetic and well-integrated with a site, so buildings, furn ...

and Usonian homes.

Notable people

Margaret H. Lippert, an award-winning author of books and anthologies

Mario Capecchi Mario Ramberg Capecchi (born 6 October 1937) is an Italian-born molecular geneticist and a co-awardee of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering a method to create mice in which a specific gene is turned off, known as knoc ...

, Nobel Prize-winning molecular geneticist James H. Rowe, a dog walker who found a down man in the road, effectively summoning help to save life of commune president.

External links

Bryn Gweled: A Historic Intentional Community and Heritage Conservancy’s First Conservation Easement
September 16, 2024, Beth Long
Foundation for Intentional Community

Notes

{{authority control Intentional communities in the United States Unincorporated communities in Bucks County, Pennsylvania Unincorporated communities in Pennsylvania