Hieromonk Panteleimon (Nizhnik), after spending ten years at St. Tikhon's Orthodox Monastery near South Canaan, Pennsylvania, wanted to live a more rigorous monastic life. Moreover, after a 1926 split between ROCOR and the group which would later become the Orthodox Church in America, he wanted to stay with the Church Abroad. He shared this desire with Ivan Kolos, a local choir director living at the monastery. Together they decided to find a place to live a “genuine monk’s life.” They traveled to Herkimer County in Upstate New York, where they bought the Starkweather farm near Jordanville for a $25 down payment. In order to pay off the mortgage, Panteleimon worked at the Sikorsky Airplane Factory in Stratford, Connecticut as a wing mechanic, while Kolos remained at his parish.