[This is part 1 of a 2-part reflection by guest author Harry Hammond on how Kendal’s founding values impacted both its physical design and its organizational structure. Harry’s writing shows how values, when translated into action, can have long-lasting consequences. Part 1 is focused on the physical aspects of the campus. Part 2 (which is focused on organizational aspects) is here . ]

Kendal’s early days. When reading the early issues of the Kendal Reporter, I was struck by how much could be said in so few words. There were brief commentaries about the property, the existing buildings and how they were being used, who was hired and where they came from, what residents could expect, the challenges of construction, questions that had been asked, and much more. Preparations for the resident community (the collective) were also reported. The Reporter’s simplicity was gutsy, being so economical. Each was a one-page trifold, text on both sides, informing the reader on a few topics, using facts rather than marketing generalizations.

Those early issues of the Reporter, written by Kendal’s first executive leader, Lloyd Lewis, and his first employee, Martin Klaver, were introductions for the soon-to-be-residents to the staff (tiny as of then), to each other, and, issue by issue, to the features they could expect to see when later moving in and the features they wouldn’t see until much later, and why. Kendal would provide health care, small living quarters, housekeeping, meals, maintenance, and a platform, in effect, on which to construct the human community. The residents would have to decide for themselves what they wanted. Lewis’s plan was to get community started (the Reporter, for example), and as residents moved in turn those initiatives over to them.

For the organization that provided the grant that was used to pay Lewis’s salary and buy the land, Kendal was their third such trial, in a sense, of an ongoing financial and social experiment. Many aspects of the physical design for Kendal at Longwood were borrowed from Foulkeways which opened five years earlier. Medford Leas (the second part of the experiment) opened just weeks before the first moving vans turned off Route #1 onto the Kendal at Longwood property. The granting organization that sparked each of the projects was the Committee on Aging Friends, which years before had been established by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends. Two of Kendal’s founding directors also served on that committee: Alan Hunt and Sally Worth. Thirty years later, both still served on Kendal boards (Alan with The Kendal Corporation, Sally with Kendal-Crosslands Communities). 

Planning the campus. The Kendal Center building was designed to be a spacious and open, bare-bones structure (the steel and wood exposed). It featured soaring ceilings in the largest rooms, lots of glass, and a fireplace. It needed to be large, as it was where community would visibly come alive, in gatherings of all sizes. The Center was also the place where residents would dine together, get their mail, get a document notarized, do their banking, get a haircut, pick up their prescriptions, borrow a tool, buy a birthday card, or drop off a busted cane chair and have the seat replaced. Two other essential-for-community aspects of the Center were that it would serve as the town square for residents and staff, and headquarters for both the administration and residents association (KRA), each in separate offices, on different floors. 

The independent-living cottages were designed to be radically different from the Center. They were placed around three sides of the Center and its multiple entrances. To have all of them within walking distance, they had to be nearby. To have living here be affordable for a large enough number of people, they had to be of different sizes, including very small, and they had to be low cost. Shared walls and cozy quarters would lower construction costs and reduce energy bills, and the tiny to very small kitchens would do the same and encourage eating at the center. The cottages were arranged in mixed-by-size groups, two to four in most groups. Each group faced another mixed group of cottages, across differently-sized rectangular courtyards. Together they formed a village of small neighborhoods with parking lots mostly out of sight on the perimeter, and beyond them near-continuous open space, with long views.

Until 2012, when large, larger, and much larger (two-floor) duplex cottages were added, every independent-living cottage had small personal gardens next to it, if wanted. We still use the word “personal” when we say garden, because lawns and other outdoor spaces were for the community and maintained by staff and residents. Covered sidewalks (windbreaks were added later) connected each cottage to every other cottage (no umbrellas needed), to the Center, to a perimeter walk, and via that to what became miles of woodland trails. The covered walks provided each resident multiple routes through the maze of cottages. The founders’ envisioned an attractive, compact, walkable community – its structures maintained by Kendal, all of it hosting the human community that was developed and sustained by the residents. Everyone would know just about everyone, even with the small steady flow of newcomers (one to three most months). The founding board knew that a population of about 300 can be such a community. Lloyd Lewis announced in one of the Reporters that Kendal’s population would not likely be larger (not counting those who would live in the Health Center, which was completed in stages, as the first residents aged).

Simplicity and economy. Other economy-minded design features included: a simple entrance to the community at Route 1 (no wall, no bright lights, no floral display, no gate); no curbs; no exterior steps on the campus (safety + cost savings); minimal exterior lighting; three-sided parking sheds for an extra fee (no doors, no door lifters); flat roofs over the lighted covered walks; no gutters/downspouts; no roof overhangs on cottages; and three, distanced from each other, laundry rooms, for residents to use.  Residents could add their own washer/dryer combo within their cottage.

Many of those features are still appreciated: a darker sky at night, no garage door motor noise, no curbs to balance on while getting into a car, and so on. (“Simple living so that others can simply live” is another Quaker ideal.)  Lloyd Lewis would be pleased to know that numerous current residents continue to organize waste reduction, composting, recycling, and energy saving; remove invasive plants and add native plants; care for KCC’s rapidly declining woodlands.

Before it was decided to use on-the-ground heat pumps when replacing the air-conditioning units that were mounted above the covered walks, the HVAC equipment for most cottages was less heard and much more out of sight. And the founders’ decision not to entirely flatten the sloping farm fields on which the buildings rose gave us spectacular long views from the Center’s dining room, large library, and Café. Though many of us wish the walk up what someone named “Cardiac Hill” was less steep, we recognize that access to all parts of the campus, no matter one’s mobility challenge, is important.  Unfortunately, management, not aware of the former policy, recently added outdoor steps in some locations. 

Melody and I feel fully tuned for the simplicity of living here. We know that most of what we have is what we use. And we know where each thing is. We can pack for a trip and head for the train without having to make elaborate house-care arrangements. The uncluttered life is right for us. Our Kendal housekeeper doesn’t have to drive a van to clean our place. The maintenance staff will never have to repave a driveway at our house because there is none. The shared parking shed (the only thing we pay for separately) reminds me often that Kendal’s bundled services are also right for us. One fee gives us access to most of what we need.  It’s a joy to know that we residents, together, participate in the ongoing funding of the services that are there for all of us. KCC’s not-for-profit financial plan suits us. We’ll not be a burden to family or friends as the light fades. Nor will either of us be alone to face the unknowns. 

Embedded in nature. Though I deeply miss some of the features and practices that brought me to Kendal, many of them created in Lewis’s time, my appreciation of Kendal continues, despite disappointments. After a lifetime of urban living, I wake up each morning at the edge of an ever-changing woodland. One trail begins across from my cottage. Melody and I, almost always together, care for the largest garden we’ve ever had and for the courtyard at our front door. From our living room window, to the left I can see a screech owl box that Jeff Stann and his grandson mounted on a wild cherry tree. I check every day, hoping it will be occupied. To the right, towering over the three-story Wellness Center, is perhaps the largest ash tree on the campus. It and I may be about the same age. Despite ash borers and my shoulder issues, that tree and I live on, well and fully. The well-being of neighbors, the natural lands, the community, and the world beyond are very much alive here.