Alexandra Wake

On January 15, 2002, Alexandra was shot and killed along with her mother Sandy, and her grandparents Juanita and James by her stepfather, who then turned the gun on himself. She was 14 years old. This tragedy forever changed all who knew them. Alex was a dear and cherished friend of Remy, Barbara Montgomery's daughter, and beloved by all in her class at The Baldwin School in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

The Farmhouse Retreat and Wellness Center rose from the ashes of this loss — a place of healing and peace, created in their memory and in their honor.

We remember them, always.

About Our Founder

Barbara Montgomery

Founder & Executive Director

Board Certified Integrative & Functional Health Practitioner · CIHP · CHHP · CBD · CNC

Barbara Montgomery's life has been shaped by an extraordinary range of callings — healer, artist, advocate, educator, and builder of community. Over more than five decades, these paths have woven together into a single, coherent purpose: the wellbeing of people, and the spaces that support it.

Health & Wellness

Barbara is a Board Certified Integrative and Functional Medicine Healthcare Practitioner whose specialties include orthomolecular medicine, nutritional biochemistry, pediatric neurological organization and development, performance and recovery, and optimal age management. She works alongside individuals and families with the singular goal of optimal wellness — addressing the whole person, not merely the symptom.

As a Buddhist practitioner for over 50 years, she incorporates meditation practices into her stress response and trauma management protocols, teaching individuals the practical effects that our psychological and emotional states have on the mindbody — for ease, or for dis-ease.

Along with her consultation practice, Barbara teaches wellness and preventive care seminars internationally to both allopathic and world medical tradition health professionals, and conducts webinars and in-person seminars for community and corporate groups seeking lifestyle healthcare and preventive practices.

For over 45 years she has developed programs for brain-injured and well children based on her deep understanding of neurological growth and development, founded on her training and clinical work at The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential in Philadelphia. She has participated in over thirty world conferences on brain research and has received the Brazilian Gold Medal of Honor for her work in this field.

She has had the great good fortune to have been trained and taught by some of the most distinguished minds in their fields, among them: Dr. Linus Pauling (Nobel Prize, Chemistry and Peace); Dr. Ralph Pelligra, MD, Chief Medical Officer, NASA/Ames; Glenn Doman, Founder, Child Brain Development, IAHP; Dr. Yeshe Donden, physician to His Holiness the Dalai Lama; Dr. Robert Sapolsky, Stanford University; Stephen Cabral, ND; Brian Brown, DNP; and Mimi Guarini, MD, FACC — along with many other recognized experts in preventive care, brain injury, neurophysiology, and biochemistry.

Arts & Music

Barbara's career in the arts has been as rich and varied as any other dimension of her life. An international recording and performing jazz vocalist, music industry executive, music producer and publisher, she has also worked in film and television as a director and producer.

She joined the production staff of an NBC/Westinghouse television station in the early 1970s, working first as Production Assistant for all news programming before moving into film editing, camera operation, lighting direction, and stage management. She worked for many years on the nationally acclaimed Mike Douglas Show, and was honored to work with the legendary Fred Friendly on his PBS series The Constitution: That Delicate Balance.

As a recording artist, Barbara has produced six CDs of her own, arranging and writing original material for four of them in collaboration with renowned international jazz masters. Her first CD recorded in Los Angeles included west coast musicians Dave Weckl, Chuck Berghofer, and Michael Sembello. Her relationship with jazz legend Chick Corea and his lyricist Neville Potter led to her third CD Dakini Land, and her fourth CD Little Sunflower brought the gift of friendship and collaboration with the great jazz trumpeter Freddie Hubbard. Both Little Sunflower and Trinity received the Blue Chip Award for Best Jazz Vocals from the International Association of Jazz Educators.

She performed extensively in Eastern Europe during the years those countries were regaining their independence, and her music is heard on radio and streaming platforms around the world. She has produced music for dozens of television programs, provided music supervision for award-winning independent films, and produced several years of music for Champions On Ice, the Olympic ice skating tour.

Barbara served as Music Director for fitness icon Richard Simmons from 1988, producing music for all of his projects — videos, television programs, and audio recordings — working in studios from New York to Los Angeles with hundreds of world-class studio musicians. She has also provided music production and supervision for programs featuring Jackie Chan, Jane Fonda, Cher, John Tesh, Connie Sellecca, and Angela Lansbury, among many others.

She has also taught languages, art, music, and violin — with direct guidance from Dr. Shinichi Suzuki — as well as sciences, history, literature, and gymnastics, giving children from birth a foundation for achieving their fullest potential.

Community & Advocacy

Barbara is deeply committed to gun violence prevention and conflict resolution — a commitment shaped by her years in Vietnam during the war, and brought with searing urgency to her own community by the tragedy of January 2002.

She served as President of The Pennsylvania Million Mom March Chapters of the Brady Campaign for ten years, hosting town meetings, speaking at press conferences state-wide, and lobbying in the Pennsylvania state capitol and in Congress in Washington, D.C. She has presented conflict resolution and gun violence prevention workshops to youth in middle schools, high schools, community organizations and colleges, produced a state-wide assault weapons ban conference in 2004, and has testified before and advised the City Council of Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania State Senate on sensible firearms legislation.

She has directed weekly workshops with teens using music as the vehicle to help them work through the violence in their lives — coaching them to write poetry, song lyrics and music, and to perform their work in public venues. She performed at the national Million Mom March on Mother's Day 2004 on the west lawn of the Capitol, honoring Alexandra and the many victims of gun violence.

Barbara also has a special passion for empowering women of all ages — creating financial security through financial literacy, goal-setting across all areas of life, and the development of employment and entrepreneurial skills. She has presented seminars and trainings in the US and the United Kingdom for 17 years, as well as mentoring and coaching individuals on an ongoing basis.

She is President Emeritus, Senior Teacher and Board Member of The Tibetan Buddhist Center of Philadelphia for the past 35 years, with direct instruction from His Holiness the Dalai Lama and other revered Tibetan teachers. She is also an ordained minister in the Universal Life Ministries, whose guiding principle is rooted in compassion: that individuals are free to live their spiritual truth, so long as their beliefs do not infringe upon the freedoms of others.

The culmination of all these paths — healer, artist, advocate, teacher, and practitioner — laid the foundation for the creation of The Farmhouse Retreat and Wellness Center.

Associations (partial list)

Board Member & President Emeritus, Chenrezig Tibetan Buddhist Center of Philadelphia
President Emeritus, Pennsylvania Million Mom Chapters of the Brady Campaign
Board Member, The Women's Board, The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential
Board Member, Loan Review Board, Philadelphia Federal Credit Union
Board Member, David Katz Scholarship Fund, Esther Boyer College of Music, Temple University
Board Member, TYL II Daycare and Montessori School, Philadelphia, PA
Member, Coalition For A Safe Future For Our Children
Member, Veterans for Peace
Member, Vietnam Veterans for Peace

Member, National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences
Member, International Association for Jazz Education
Member, SAG/AFTRA
Member, International Campaign for Tibet
Member, Middle Atlantic Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence
Songwriter Member, Broadcast Music Inc.
Publisher Member, ASCAP
Publisher Member, Broadcast Music Inc.
Jazz Series Producer, The Red Room at the Society Hill Playhouse, Philadelphia, PA
Jazz Series Producer, Jazz Bridge / Jazz at The Flash