Green Hills keeps tradition alive as one of smallest boroughs in Pa.
When the members of Green Hills Borough Council gathered at Lone Pine Country Club on Sept. 11 so retiring Mayor Terry George could hand the reins to his successor and former council President Jodi Chapman, it felt more like a family reunion than a staid bureaucratic function.
Green Hills is a unique place in Pennsylvania, with fewer residents – 19 – than a half-full school bus and one of the top per-capita incomes in the entire commonwealth, jammed into just over 640 acres total. It has one of the smallest populations in the state.
The roughly one square-mile borough centered around the club is a charming anachronism that has survived thanks to its close-knit community formed through a shared love of family, friends and golf. The very existence of Green Hills in Washington County represents a sort of walking loophole, according to George.
Founded in 1971 by local businessman Vernon C. Neal Sr., the Lone Pine Country Club was carved out of roughly a half square-mile of land on the western edge of South Franklin Township as Neal’s vision for what the ideal private club should be, George said. But Neal soon ran into a problem with that arrangement, as South Franklin’s status as a dry township held up his plan to sell alcohol at the club’s restaurant.
“It became apparent that the club could not make it without a liquor license,” George said.
After trying, and ultimately failing, to convert the township to wet with a ballot referendum, Neal worked with his close friend, John Pettit, who later served as Washington County’s longtime district attorney, to hatch a plan to create a new municipality from the land immediately surrounding the club with a formal secession effort from South Franklin Township.
This arrangement would allow businesses within the new municipality to apply for an alcohol license through the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board since they would no longer be subject to the township’s dry ordinance.
The plan worked, and Neal successfully seceded from the township to form Green Hills Borough in 1978, where he would serve as inaugural mayor and owner of the club that occupied more than half of the borough’s land.
At the time, Green Hills – located along Route 18 about six miles south of Washington – boasted around 38 residents, far fewer than the 3,800 residents within South Franklin Township, according to George. The state Legislature amended the commonwealth’s borough code shortly after to enact a minimum population threshold of 500 residents for any group attempting municipal secession.
George came to the area to work as a golf professional in the newly-founded country club in the mid 1970s, before his then-boss and later friend Neal began his secession drive. He said they witnessed the borough take its first steps, and grow into the unique position it occupies today.
According to George, he was elected mayor from his seat on borough council sometime in the early 2000s after the retirement of Cindy Songer, who took over from Neal after his death in 1986. George retired from his role at the club in 2013 after 38 years, choosing to dedicate his time to his family and mayoral duties.
“We have to govern a borough the same as the mayor of the City of Pittsburgh has to govern,” George said. “We have a borough council, we have a mayor, we have a borough manager, we have a borough solicitor, a borough engineer and to keep the borough in compliance, I have to do the same thing, the mayor of Pittsburgh has to do.”
As the self-described “history major” of the borough, George relishes his role persevering and promulgating the stories of Green Hills.
“I’ve been here from the inception, and so I’ve seen the borough formed, and I’ve been here through the whole thing. … Everything’s in my head,” he said.
With no locally-owned roads, no fire department or police department, Green Hills lacks the three largest items on many municipalities’ annual budgets, George said. This allows borough leadership to take a far more hands-off approach than other elected officials in local government. Council meets on an as-needed basis with Lone Pine’s golf club serving as the ad-hoc borough office, he said.
Green Hills relies on the Pennsylvania State Police and the South Franklin Volunteer Fire Department for emergency coverage, and coordinates closely with the township on zoning, taxation and sewer treatment matters.
This includes the Multi-municipality Comprehensive Plan that the two municipalities have shared since 2008, which has fostered greater cooperation and shared economic development, according to South Franklin Township Manager Tyler Linck. Linck described this relationship as “pretty fruitful,” noting the ongoing mutual respect and planning efforts with borough leadership.
The two municipalities have been working for years on an PENNVEST funding application to construct a $20 million shared water and sewer treatment plant to be located in South Franklin Township, Linck said, which will represent the next major phase of the cordial municipal relationship once complete.
Although George was elected to serve another four-year term last November, he says that now is the time to step down, since his increasing time spent in Florida has left him unable to physically oversee affairs in the borough as much as he would like. He stepped aside to let Chapman take the helm.
Chapman, whose family trust purchased Lone Pine from the previous ownership group in 2025, said that she is excited to continue her family’s legacy in Green Hills. Her grandparents were founding members of the club and close confidants to Neal.
“My family moved to Green Hills in the early 1970s. I believe in 1970, they bought the farm. So our farm borders the club,” she said.
Chapman was elected to five terms on borough council, with the most recent as president, after she moved back to the borough in 2003. Chapman said that the borough mayoral role is an “equally important hat to wear” as club owner, since the two entities are inexorably intertwined.
“We have a lot invested in this area,” she said, “I mean, we have over 300 acres of family farm, and then I believe the club is 164 acres … so we’re a good chunk of Green Hills.”
According to Chapman, she wants the next chapter for the club and the borough to be one of balanced growth and continuity.
“I want to make sure that it continues to be Green Hills … I want to continue that tradition. They fought hard to get this borough established, and just when I make sure that it continues,” she said.
Chapman said that her family’s main goal is to continue developing the club, making it more family-friendly and welcoming. This includes launching new community events, like bingo nights, trivia competitions and seasonal vendor shows at the club.
This effort has enabled a recent surge in membership growth, with the invite-only club now boasting over 200 full members, she said, representing over 10 times the total population of the borough. The lines between club member and Green Hills residents often seem intentionally blurry at times.
“There’s quite a few generations in the different families that are in Green Hills and it just continues to be passed down, everybody knows everybody in some way, whether through golfing or construction or some aspect of it, it all comes together and everybody,” Chapman said. “It’s just a small community.”
When George formally stepped down as mayor in an evening ceremony at Lone Pine on Sept. 11, he was confident that both the club and the borough were in safe hands.
“She’s been here for more than 20 years on council,” he said. “She’s been my right hand go-to person any time I needed something handled in counsel she could handle it.”
Judge Jesse Pettit, the son of John Pettit, swore in Chapman as the new mayor to a round of joyous applause, formally passing the torch to the next generation of Green Hills Borough leadership.