The property was acquired by the Independence Foundation, a nonprofit cooperative and self-governing group of which Borsodi was a trustee. The other members were Samuel D. Dodge, Clarence E. Pickett, Dr. Harold Rugg, Beveridge C. Dunlop, W. Van Alan Clark, Mrs. Elizabeth Macdonald, Mrs. William Sargent Ladd and Dr. Warren Wilson. They divided the estate into homesteads occupied by individual families. The homes were owned individually, the land cooperatively. The Foundation indentured the land to the homeowner through a corporation representing them. Fourteen families who knew Borsodi or who had heard of his project were willing to try the experiment after those interested in the idea had been "philosophically initiated the previous January", "The New York Times" reported.