George Nakashima Woodworkers is located on a quiet road just behind the picturesque main drag of New Hope in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, approximately two hours southwest of New York City. The route I took, driving there one recent morning, was dotted with farmhouses and involved crossing a bridge over the same section of the Delaware River that George Washington forded during the Revolutionary War, a fact marked by several signs and a replica boat. The area has become more glamorous in recent years, attracting residents like Yolanda Hadid and her two supermodel children, Gigi and Bella Hadid, as well as Bradley Cooper, earning Bucks County the distinction of being a serious “rival to the Hamptons.”
For a long time before that, though, New Hope was a beacon for an artistic community, attracting artists, playwrights, and, notably, the 20th-century woodworker George Nakashima, who moved to New Hope after his release in 1943 from the Minidoka War Relocation Center in Idaho, one of the several internment camps created by the American government during World War II.
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