In the 1940s a group of young couples in New York City banded together to pursue a dream of cooperative home ownership. They hammered out an organizational structure for their community, which they named Usonia after a term coined by Frank Lloyd Wright. They purchased ninety-seven acres of land north of the city, engaged Wright to prepare a site plan and design some of the homes, and organized weekend work parties to get the first homes built. Nearly all of the community's forty-seven homes were built between 1948 and 1956.
Over time the Usonians weathered financial crises and were forced to make many adjustments to their original plan. Cooperative ownership of the individual homes, for example, proved unworkable. But the social fabric of the community remained strong: In Usonia's first forty years, only twelve homes changed hands, six of those to children of original owners.
I grew up a couple of miles away from Usonia, and several of my best friends lived there. I was always in awe of their connection to the other families in the community. A Usonia kid could walk into any home in the community and feel welcomed, safe and secure. But until I read Roland Reisley's 2001 book, Usonia, New York: Building a Community with Frank Lloyd Wright, I had no comprehension of the vast amount of planning, discussion and negotiation that went into the creation of Usonia.
The originators of Usonia were diligent in documenting the group's discussions and progress. With the benefit of these decades worth of records, Mr. Reisley's book provides a fascinating and detailed window into the immense time and effort, as well as the concessions, involved in the process of building and sustaining a community.
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