Lake Fong, Post-Gazette Zac Stanley, left, 13, and his brother Ben play with light sabers outside their home on Franklin Avenue in Aliquippa. Their family rents from the Community of Celebration, a communal religious group that bought and renovated the row houses for its members. Click photo for larger image.

The waitress at an Aliquippa restaurant thought she caught an unusual accent among a group sitting down for lunch.

"Where are yinz from?" she asked as she took their order.

"We're from Scotland," Bill Farra answered.

"Get aht! What are you doing here?" she asked.

"We didn't want to give her the long answer," Mr. Farra said, "so I told her that God told us to come here.

"She took a step back and said, 'Well, he's been telling me to get the hell out of here for years now!'"

That was a typical response when the Community of Celebration settled here 20 years ago. The first sign of their arrival was the renovation of a row of brick townhouses and an old funeral home on Franklin Avenue. But soon, the community was making a bigger impact on this old Beaver County steel town.

The community's tale begins in the 1960s, when Mr. Farra was a first-year law student in Houston. He stopped in one Sunday at the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer, looking for solace and comfort.

"I was grieving," he said. "My first wife had just died of leukemia."

The visit was a turning point for Mr. Farra, who soon became part of a church community that worshipped and sang together and shared all things in common. In the process, they revitalized a failing church and were invited as a group to England to share their experience of parish renewal.

After three years there, the group's number had reached as high as 60. They were invited to Cumbrae, an island off the coast of Scotland, where they had a ministry in a small cathedral, recorded music and ran a bakery.

In 1985, the community decided to move again and began to look at locations in the United Kingdom and the United States. Among their criteria was a place that needed social revitalization and access to an international airport "because we were still traveling quite a bit," Mr. Farra said.

The Rev. Alden Hathaway, the former Episcopal bishop of Pittsburgh, knew of the Community and invited them to take a look around the area.

"In Aliquippa, we saw the devastation after the mills closed, and the unemployment was high," Mr. Farra recalled. "We said, 'This looks right for us.' "

Though the community counted 30 members in Scotland, only six made the move to Aliquippa.

"Living an extraordinary lifestyle is not going to be everyone's life path," Mr. Farra said. "It is a formative thing that prepares them to move on to something else."

The permanent members, who have taken the Catholic Benedictine vows of stability, obedience and conversion of life, are Mr. Farra and his second wife, Mimi; May and Steven McKeown; James von Minden; and Joe Beckey.

To house the community, they bought 12 row houses and an old funeral home on Franklin Avenue. The Farras came as an advance team and oversaw creation of the office first. They now work there with May McKeown and Mr. Beckey. Mimi Farra is also an adjunct faculty member at Trinity Episcopal Seminary in Ambridge. Steven McKeown serves as chaplain to several groups and ministers to two churches.

The first six townhouses, aside from freshening up, needed rewiring and new kitchens. The other six were gutted to the studs and rebuilt. Each one has a large kitchen, a living room and four bedrooms. Five of the houses are rented out at affordable prices.

"We drew up a set of rules concerning use of the common space," said Mr. Farra. "Some of the units are rented out to those who have connections to us, and one is maintained as a guest house. We are high on hospitality here."

In one of the townhouses, Mr. von Minden and Mr. Beckey share a cozy family room in the basement with deep melon walls and soft lights. Their kitchen has a collection of cookware hanging above the sink, a bookcase full of cookbooks and a display of copper molds.

The kitchen is the center of this home and a place for some serious cooking. Mr. von Minden is the caterer and cook for all the conferences, as well as the gardener and French horn player for worship services. The kitchen window, lined with Delft blue tiles and topped with a collection of blue glass bottles, looks out on the unbroken stretch of common back yards.

The row's residents share the park-like space behind their homes. They sometimes play Kubb, an intergenerational game with wooden blocks and rods, similar to horseshoes or bocce.

"Some guests from Europe brought it to us as a gift," said Mimi Farra.

John and Alison Stanley and their children, Zac, Ben and Luke, from Australia, live in another of the row houses, as friends of the community. Mrs. Stanley heads up the Aliquippa Community Enterprise program, which helps get women into the work force.

Maggie Durran was a Celebration member who chose not to move with the community to Aliquippa. But she has returned to help. Wanting to invest here, she bought the old Salvation Army building adjacent to Celebration's office for $20,000 and leases it to the community. Ms. Durran, who became an Anglican priest, is now a consultant on preserving England's old churches.

"We've got thousands of them and can't any longer fill them," said Ms. Durran. "Mostly I tell folks to respect the building and make it relevant to its current use, so that you don't turn it into a museum. Respect what it is, and take it forward."

In 2002, the Community added an annex to its office, with a kitchen, dining room and octagonal chapel with a beamed cathedral ceiling. The chapel holds the only Episcopal worship service in town, on Saturday evenings.

John Stanley recently opened a "common space" down the street, called Uncommon Grounds. Thirty local churches contributed money, supplies and labor to create the cafe, which stands out, ablaze with color, among the vacant buildings. Large glass windows bring light inside and show off the long sleek silvery counter.

"We want to honor the tradition of steel with this post-industrial style but not be a slave to it," said Mr. Stanley.

Tom Stoner, city manager of Aliquippa, appreciates the community's efforts toward renewal.

"They are a tremendous asset to Aliquippa," he said. "Steve is our chaplain, and Bill is chairperson of the Franklin Avenue Development Committee."

It's a mutual feeling.

"We, as a community, are here to stay," said Mr. Farra. "Our mission is to serve the church and the world. We take all comers ... and we reach out to address the needs of where we live."

The Celebration Community offers conferences and workshops and rents its space to other groups. The dining room seats up to 36, and the chapel can be arranged for groups of up to 50, with breakout rooms. Overnight accommodations are available. Information: 724-375-1510 or www.communityofcelebration.com.