The Free Commune of Penadexo is an intentional community restoring an abandoned hill village in the province of Lugo, Galicia, in north-western Spain, as a home for people who want a freer, more self-reliant life.
What the Free Commune of Penadexo is
The Free Commune of Penadexo is a grassroots intentional community taking shape in a long-abandoned village in rural Galicia, one of the most sparsely populated corners of north-western Spain. It belongs to a wider movement of village-revival projects that repopulate Europe’s emptying countryside with newcomers drawn together by shared values rather than by birthplace, and it is associated with the Dutch entrepreneur Marnix van Suylekom, who has documented the purchase and the restoration in public.
The initiative grew from a simple idea: that a deserted settlement, still served by water, electricity, internet and road access but set at a comfortable distance from dense bureaucracy, can become a home for people seeking a freer, more self-directed life. It is conceived as an open homeowners’ community, welcoming people of any age or nationality.
Where Penadexo is
Penadexo is a village in the parish of Saá in the municipality of A Pobra do Brollón, in the province of Lugo, at about 800 metres on the western edge of the Courel mountains. The village had been almost entirely abandoned, and the official population register still lists a single registered inhabitant, which is what made a whole village available to restore.
How the Free Commune works
Members aim to rebuild the village’s houses and common spaces and, over the long term, to cultivate a largely self-sufficient local economy founded on agricultural and cultural activity, with an emphasis on voluntary cooperation and private ownership rather than reliance on outside institutions. Prospective members are expected to work on the restoration or to pay for work to be done; residents earn their living remotely, from savings or seasonally elsewhere, and the community has begun planting an apple orchard and a chestnut grove as its first commercial crops.
The village keeps a feast day for its patron saint, Titus Brandsma, each July. Visitors are taken in from May to October: a guest room in one of the restored houses, and a campsite with electricity, a bathroom and a kitchen.
From our coverage
Podcast Episode 55
Marnix van Suylekom: Buying an Abandoned Village in Spain
Marnix van Suylekom on buying and reviving an abandoned village in Galicia, Spain, applying Agorist principles to a bottom-up community.
VideoLiberty in Our Lifetime 2023
What people ask
Where is Penadexo?
In the parish of Saá, municipality of A Pobra do Brollón, province of Lugo, Galicia, in north-western Spain, at about 800 metres near the Courel mountains.
What is the Free Commune of Penadexo?
A freedom-oriented intentional community restoring an abandoned village as an open homeowners’ community, with the long-term aim of a largely self-sufficient local economy built on agriculture and culture.
Who can join the Free Commune?
People of any age or nationality who share its values and are willing to work on the restoration or to pay for work to be done. The commune sets out how to get involved on its own site.