Moving to Beaumont at Bryn Mawr: The Seller’s Guide to the Resident-Owned Cooperative

It is owned by its residents. Beaumont is a not-for-profit corporation in which residents purchase their homes and become equal voting members; the community is governed by the residents themselves and run by a professional management team they oversee. There is no entrance fee. You buy a real interest, customize it as you wish, and may sell whenever you choose, with prices guided by an IRS formula applicable to nonprofit corporations and the resale process managed by Beaumont’s marketing office. Nothing else in Greater Philadelphia works quite this way: Princeton Windrows is resident-owned condominiums, and Hershey’s Mill is deeded homes under HOAs, but Beaumont is a resident-owned cooperative corporation running its own continuing care community on a Gilded Age estate. Independent 2019 figures put purchase prices from roughly $300,000 to $2.2 million.

Independent 2022 figures put monthly fees for one person at $5,360 to $7,262 in the apartments and $6,719 to $7,286 in the villas, plus $2,049 for a second person and a $350 monthly capital fee billed as a separate line. The distinctive number is the medical reserve fee, a per-person charge that scales with age at entry: roughly $8,755 at age 76 rising to $23,690 at 85 and older (2022 figures), increasing $1,500 to $2,000 per year of age. It funds the community’s care obligation: personal care and skilled nursing in the on-campus Wellness Center are covered for 183 days per year, after which residents pay 50% of the per diem. That structure is neither a Type A lifecare contract nor pure fee-for-service; it is a resident-owned cooperative insuring itself, and the math deserves an adviser’s read against the alternatives.

Residents purchase their homes and hold equal voting membership in the nonprofit corporation that owns the 50-acre property. When a resident leaves or dies, the home is sold, with prices guided by an IRS formula for nonprofit corporations and the negotiation and paperwork handled through Beaumont’s marketing department; properties for sale are listed on Beaumont’s own website. For the estate, that means the asset behaves much more like real property than like an entrance fee receivable: value returns through a sale rather than through a contractual refund schedule. Families should still read the membership and occupancy agreements carefully with counsel, because a cooperative interest is not a fee-simple deed, and transfer mechanics, fees, and approval processes are governed by the corporation’s documents.

The centerpiece is the Austin Mansion, built in 1912 for railroad executive William Austin on what became a 67-acre estate; its music room has ceiling murals by decorative painter George Herzog and an original Aeolian organ, one of only three in the world. Businessman Art Wheeler bought 50 acres of the estate in 1983 and Beaumont opened as a continuing care community on the property in 1988. The mansion now houses the common rooms, dining venues, and an aquatic and fitness center, with 25 acres of woodland behind. Residences are 131 apartments in two buildings connected to the mansion, all with balconies, plus 68 villas bordering the woods with garages and decks. Dining runs from the Bistro to formal rooms, the meal plan covers a continental breakfast and roughly a meal a day, and the minimum age is 60.

Usually, since the purchase prices (roughly $300,000 to $2.2 million on independent figures) are Main Line house money, and the medical reserve fee adds a five-figure per-person charge at entry. Unlike an entrance fee community with a single move-in deadline, Beaumont is a purchase, so this is a two-transaction move: sell the house, buy the cooperative interest, with the sell-first-or-buy-first decision resolved by your cash position and inventory timing (there is a refundable $1,500 waitlist and a Future Residents Club worth joining early). The house sale itself follows the Main Line playbook: Lower Merion or Radnor township paperwork, careful preparation at a tier where positioning matters, and gain math that often exceeds the $250,000/$500,000 exclusion on long-held houses.