Where Peace and Blessings Abound
- Apr 11
- 4 min read
by Fred Opalinksi
[Originally published in the Spring 2026 issue of Mount Gretna Magazine. View the full issue to see this story in its designed layout, complete with additional images.]
My wife Janet and I first experienced Mount Gretna in the mid-1970s when we were living in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. Friends from Lancaster County invited us to a Gretna Music event at the Mount Gretna Playhouse. After the delightful concert, we strolled along Harvard Avenue, marveling at the trees, the architecture, and the porch gatherings, thinking, “What a fascinating place!” My wife’s aunt had spent a week many summers ago at the Lutheran house in Chautauqua, New York, so we knew about the Chautauqua, but didn’t realize that Pennsylvania had a mini-Chautauqua until that evening.
In 1980, we moved to Latrobe, Pennsylvania, where we remained for almost 24 years. Mount Gretna became little more than a memory in the back of our minds. But in 2003, we moved to Reading and reconnected with Gretna music and theater, attending events, walking the streets, and feeling more and more like we “belonged” here.
Finally, in 2013, during a brief hospitalization, I thought, “What are we waiting for?” We scheduled some showings at a time when quite a few cottages were on the market due to the property tax reassessment. We found the “Airplane Cottage” on Third Street in Campmeeting, which checked many of the boxes for us. It had a great location, a huge porch, and an open floor plan (thanks to some fanciful interior support pillars) with lots of stained glass and other charming features thrown in for good measure. We closed on the cottage that summer and spent a year making the place our own.
The cottage’s name came from a previous owner, an airline pilot. He and his father designed wooden cutouts of all the planes he had flown, lining the porch perimeter with them.
At that time, the cottage had a bland white siding with dark green trim. We decided to brighten the exterior with color, replacing the airplanes with Gothic trim to match the prominent church window on the front second floor, and selling most of the cutouts at the Memorial Day porch sale. We kept four of them, mounting them above the dining table on the porch in homage to the cottage’s history. We rechristened the place "Twin Cedars" after the two tall trees on either side of the front steps.
In addition to the church window in the primary bedroom, a second bedroom features a Gothic-stained-glass window installed near the roofline, with a lion’s head carved into the bottom frame. Even the smallest bedroom has a door filled with stained glass panes, opening onto a second-floor reading porch.
In addition to stained glass, the pilot owner must have delighted in having doors. All of the bedroom doors were once front doors of Victorian homes, with more stained glass, carvings, and even a brass mail slot. The first floor also has interesting features: a pressed tin door at the pantry, an elaborate tin panel on the kitchen ceiling, double doors with swan handles at the bathroom, and a gorgeous walnut stair railing with a burled wood newel post.
As if these features weren’t enough, exploring in the basement that first year, I found two matching stained-glass doors advertising White Dutch. Online research revealed that this was the name of a type of clover, and perhaps these doors came from a seed company or store. I cut one of the doors in half, hanging the top at the corner of the porch, and bartered the other door for some work being done at the cottage.
Although we’ve owned the cottage for over a decade, every trip from our home in Reading still brings a feeling of anticipation and even excitement. Most especially, we enjoy welcoming friends and family to the porch, where, at times, we’ve had 30 or more for dinner.
Each spring, we compile a list of music and theater events and email it with an invitation to join us for dinner and a concert. We’ve welcomed friends from all over the United States and also from Germany, France, Spain, Brazil, and South Africa. We’ve also hosted Gretna musicians from Belgium, France, and Russia. Time and again, we’ve heard them exclaim, “We’ve never seen a place like this,” and we have to agree.
Behind our cottage are two significant markers: a “peace pole” painted by our daughter Kristen, with the word peace in 42 languages, and a rock cairn that came with the cottage. Since ancient times, a cairn — also called Ebenezer in the Old Testament scriptures — has been a pillar of stones used to mark a place of significance, often where a life-changing encounter with God occurred. We see both markers as wonderful signs of what can happen when people come to Mount Gretna, where peace and blessings abound.
Fred Opalinski retired after 42 years as a Lutheran pastor, serving in the Mercersburg area, Latrobe, and Reading, Pennsylvania. He’s now a licensed Realtor, working in Berks and Lebanon counties. A lover of music, he sings in four Reading choral groups and a year ago began studying the cello. He and his wife, Janet, a retired teacher, live in Reading and have two daughters: Megan, a musical theater actor, and Kristen, manager of ecumenical and inter-faith relations for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. They all delight in family member Molly Rey, a 7-year-old Goldendoodle, called by others the “Campmeeting Ambassador.”
