Our Manifesto
We are building something America has not seen before — a civilization within a civilization, rooted in beauty, ordered by faith, and expressed through ownership, art, and community.
The Reality
Something essential has gone quiet in American life.
The Main Streets emptied. The beautiful buildings stopped being built. The stories worth telling stopped being told. The feast days faded. And a generation came of age in a country that had forgotten what it was building toward.
Our Resolve
We do not accept this as permanent. We believe the hunger for beauty is unkillable.
That the desire for ownership, community, craft, and transcendence runs deeper in the human soul than any ideology can reach. That what has been lost can be rebuilt — not by nostalgia, but by courage.
Civitas Dei exists to do the rebuilding. Not through politics. Not through protest. Through ownership, excellence, beauty, and the slow, patient, irreversible work of civilization.
“Two cities have been formed by two loves — the earthly city by love of self, the heavenly city by love of God.”SAINT AUGUSTINE · THE CITY OF GOD · 426 AD
The Blueprint
Five domains. One vision.
A civilization renewed.
Main Street Ownership
The greatest transfer of small businesses in American history is underway. We are placing values-aligned owners in those businesses — building wealth, preserving community, and rooting the next generation in the places they love.
The Art of Story
Culture flows from narrative. We are gathering the finest writers, directors, and artists to tell the stories that matter — heroism, sacrifice, beauty, love, redemption — with the craft and ambition they deserve.
Built Beauty
We are restoring the beautiful to American towns. Through neoclassical architecture, civic art, and thoughtful design, we are making places worth inhabiting — places that say, by their very form, that human life is sacred and worthy of beauty.
Feast & Pilgrimage
We are restoring the calendar. Festivals that gather communities in shared celebration. Pilgrimages that make the landscape sacred again. Events that create the memories and bonds a civilization is made of.
Formation & Faith
At the center of everything is the altar. Daily Mass, sacramental life, and the pursuit of holiness are not additions to our mission — they are its source. We form people before we build institutions.
Our Capital
Poultney, Vermont
Nestled between the Green Mountains and the Adirondacks, on the 155-acre campus of the former Green Mountain College, Civitas Dei has established its home. A campus of Georgian buildings and working farmland, through which the crystal-clear Poultney River flows. A town that lost its anchor and is ready to find a new one. A place where the clock stopped — and where we intend to start it again.
This is not merely a headquarters. It is the first proof of the vision — a community being built from the ground up, a Main Street being renewed, a campus being transformed into something that will stand for centuries. Come and see what we are building.
Mount Civitas Aerial View
The sprawling 155+ acre campus in Poultney, Vermont, featuring historic brick buildings, athletic fields, and pristine nature.
Historic Campus Facade
The iconic brick and ivy architecture of the main buildings at the heart of Mount Civitas.
Academic & Lodging Buildings
Classic architecture offering housing, classrooms, and seminar spaces for programs and resident guests.
The Campus Commons
Spacious and beautiful common areas designed for student gatherings, study groups, and community life.
Study & Recreation Lounges
Additional comfortable lounges spread across campus buildings for quiet reading and conversation.
The Dining Refectory
A grand community dining space where residents and visitors share communal meals and hospitality.
Historic Main Hall Entrance
Beautiful craftsmanship and classic woodwork inside the main administrative and academic hall.
The Campus Theater
A dedicated auditorium space for guest lectures, community meetings, films, and theatrical productions.
Athletic & Recreation Facilities
Full-scale athletic gymnasium to support physical wellness and fraternal recreation.
Scenic Vermont Campus Grounds
Beautiful pathways and nature surrounding the college campus in Poultney, Vermont.
Outdoor Gathering Space
Fire pits and outdoor seating areas fostering late-night discussions, fellowship, and recreation.
Who We Seek
The best are not looking for a job. They are looking for a mission worthy of their lives.
We are not building another nonprofit. We are not managing another portfolio. We are attempting something that has not been attempted in modern America — the deliberate, comprehensive renewal of a civilization's cultural, economic, and spiritual life, simultaneously, with urgency and with excellence.
We seek architects who believe beauty is not optional. Filmmakers who believe stories can save souls. Financiers who believe capital is a moral instrument. Business owners who believe commerce can be a form of service. Priests who believe the altar is the center of everything. Artists, farmers, teachers, builders — anyone who has felt the loss of what America was meant to be, and who is willing to do something about it.
Our Conviction
“Talent without commitment is entertainment. Commitment without talent is earnestness. We require both — and we offer in return the rarest thing in modern life: work that genuinely matters, in a community that genuinely believes, in a place of genuine beauty.”
The Long View
We are not building for a news cycle. We are building for centuries.
The Cathedral of Notre-Dame took 182 years to build. The Rule of Saint Benedict has ordered communities for fifteen centuries. The great Catholic universities of Europe shaped Western civilization for five hundred years before any of the men who founded them were remembered by name.
We are planting trees whose shade we may not live to enjoy. We are writing the first chapter of a story whose ending we cannot see. We are doing, in this generation, what every generation that cared about civilization has done — adding something permanent, beautiful, and true to the inheritance of those who come after.
The Clock on Ames Hall
The clock on Ames Hall stood still since Green Mountain College closed in 2019. We restarted it the day we arrived. That is what Civitas Dei does — it restarts the clocks. It reopens the closed places. It rekindles what the age has let go cold.
The city is not built by proclamation. It is built by those who show up.
If you have been waiting for something worthy of your gifts, your resources, your life — this is it. Come to Poultney. Bring your talent. Bring your faith. Bring your hunger for what America could still become.