It thrives as a throwback to the idealistic 1960s when so-called dropouts and hippies created new communitiesor communes-in the search for a kinder, gentler world.
Spread over 450 acres of rolling Virginia countryside, the Twin Oaks commune in Louisa also offers a piece of the long-gone decade’s laid-back lifestyle: the hammock.
Since the late 1960s the production and sale of hammocks, which Twin Oaks advertises as “your backyard vacation,” have enabled the farm complex to sustain its own brand of income-sharing, eco-sensitive living. As a member of the Federation of Egalitarian Communities, it promotes the “communal alternative to mainstream society.”
At Twin Oaks the uniform of the day is in keeping with the rural setting-jeans, skirts and chinos. Hairstyles range from close-cropped to 1960s long, personally rather than professionally styled.
Members choose their own hours of work but must log 46 hours a week on an honor system. This includes routine housekeeping, farm chores, child care as well as various hammockmaking tasks.
Last year, Twin Oaks reported gross sales of $1.8 million-mostly from the hammock business. The biggest customer is Pier 1 Imports, which buys roughly 70 percent of the output.
Beginning in 1967, hammockmaking was a cottage industry performed mostly around the front porch of the farmhouse until a Pier 1 employee spotted one at his mother’s nearby bed-and-breakfast. According to local lore, he took the piece to a regional meeting of store managers who were so impressed that they decided to buy.
Recently Tom Freeman, a commune member, walked visitors around the farm, pointing out the landmarks. The newest building, a cabinlike residence hall called Sunrise, cost $300,000 to build and is equipped for solar heat and electricity.
Freeman, who is 33 and once manned telephones for Ronald Reagan’s 1984 presidential campaign, came to Twin Oaks with five other classmates after graduation from the College of William and Mary.
The atmosphere is noticeably relaxed. As visitors amble along the gravel roads of Twin Oaks, they soon encounter a telltale sign that cautions “Go Slow.” Among the other sights are bicycles clustered around buildings, clotheslines full of casual duds flapping in the breeze, and residents eating their mostly vegetarian lunches outdoors from wood bowls.
Hammocks and hanging chairs, arranged around the many trees and flower beds, serve as rest stops during breaks. In the small shop where the chairs are assembled, space has been set aside for the commune’s band to practice and perform as if to stress the importance of mixing work and play.
At another stop, Freeman points out the 1925 rope machine, which was refurbished after being rescued from a North Carolina junkyard and now churns out 85,000 pounds of rope a year to make some 12,000 hammocks and hammock chairs. A new computerized replacement will be capable of a 160,000-pound annual output.
In a separate building featuring a $50,000 drill, members shape, mold, plane, drill, sand and finish the wood pieces used in assembling the hammocks and chairs. The commune recycles the wood scraps and sawdust for heating and garden mulch.
The weaving process for the hammock stretchers and beds takes place in a separate workshop-like building and outdoors in mild weather. Workers usually weave in pairs, which Freeman said “provided more interaction and made people feel more pleasant about their work.”
During the afternoon, a commune member, who wore a jungle-print shirt decorated with macaws, slipped into the workshop to weave harnesses.
“I can work anytime during the day or night,” said the jovial man, who identified himself as Coyote, “and knock off a dozen an hour.”
Commune members often adopt new first names to avoid confusion, Freeman explained. Surnames, family backgrounds and pedigrees are not considered important.
In the last few years, competition has forced Twin Oaks to expand its product line beyond the popular hammock with the woven green or white rope bed and the hammock chair, which can be hung from a tree or a ceiling.
The community also sells a new fabric hammock made with unbleached cotton rope, a tubular hammock stand, a weather-resistant hammock pillow with Velcro fasteners, as well as a free-standing chair with a solid oak frame and woven hammock seat. Hammocks are available in six colors, including jaunty turquoise and claret.
Ever sensitive to its customers, Twin Oaks also does hammock repairs. Any Twin Oaks chair or hammock that is beyond repair may be returned for a $25 discount toward the purchase of a new one.
None of the changes, however, has come easily at Twin Oaks.
“We don’t change very well or very fast because we can’t tell people to do things,” Freeman explained. “We have to compel them through sound argument. We also value our people living here more than making money. Still, we have to make money.”
Conceding this sounds somewhat contradictory, he added: “The community generally makes wise decisions, but members need to be given the information first about why we want to expand our product line, why we want to build a new warehouse or why the community wants to spend money on a new rope machine.”
In order to secure more name recognition, especially among high-end and speciality shops that sell patio, pool and outdoor accessories, Twin Oaks promotes and sells its wares at more than 20 craft, hardware and casual furniture shows.
Among the community’s newer sidelines: a handcrafted walking stick, vegetarian sausage and tofu that is sold to restaurants and health food stores. Another recent business activity is indexing books for major publishers, such as Random House, and university presses.
Inside the original farmhouse, Kathleen “Kat” Kinkade, the only founding member of Twin Oaks still in residence, talked about how the late B.F. Skinner’s 1948 novel, “Walden Two,” had inspired them. In the book Skinner, a behaviorial psychologist, envisioned a utopian society in which people would work and produce without resorting to the familiar punitive controls of the traditional workplace.
Describing Skinner as “a gentle, sweet man who was very talkative,” Kincade said the Harvard professor once visited Twin Oaks and later wrote approvingly of its experiment in communal living.
“Twin Oaks is simply the world in miniature,” Skinner said. “The problems it faces and the solutions it tries are those of the world community.”
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Twin Oaks offers tours from 2 to 5 p.m. every Saturday in the summer for a $3 fee. In the winter, tours are held every other Saturday. Twin Oaks Community, 138 Twin Oaks Rd., Louisa, Va. 23093.
