Holden Village - A Memoir: New Life - Endless Stories

Today Holden Village is a thriving educational and spiritual retreat center attracting teachers, artists, musicians, and people of all ages wanting to learn and grow. Nestled deep within the North Cascades in Washington State, Holden is surrounded by stunning views-a rare beauty in nature that came with a cost.

Once a bustling copper town, the mine closed in 1957, leaving the town abandoned. In the early 1960s, a group of Lutheran laity saw an opportunity to revitalize the town and took the risk of building a new community in an isolated location where communication with the outside world was only possible through the US mail service or amateur radio, with the nearest medical facilities forty miles away by helicopter or boat.

But as the community attracted teachers, students, and the retired who were willing to volunteer their time and enjoy the remote, isolated community to experience the awe-inspiring splendor, Holden Village soon became known as a place where people could learn and enjoy open discussions on a wide variety of subjects-including science, art, and theology.

Recounting the early decades of the revitalized town, Holden Village: A Memoir offers an inside view of a remarkable human experience of community and personal growth.

Formally educated as an aeronautical engineer at Purdue University, Werner Janssen decided to follow a completely different career path at the age of twenty-four when he accepted the position of business manager of Holden Village, a unique, isolated, developing retreat center located in the North Cascade mountains of Washington State. After managing and developing the operation from 1963 to 1983, he went on to serve as a school board member for eight years in the Cascade School District and as Chelan Public Utility District Commissioner for four years. In 1993 Janssen joined the project management team developing the Sleeping Lady Mountain Retreat in Leavenworth, Washington, eventually serving as its general manager and becoming a member of the Sleeping Lady Foundation. For seven years he presented the weekly, at times, controversial social commentary Consider This on the local radio station KOHO 101.1 FM.