Taylor, I read the same article two months ago and confess that it was so good (as Steve Friedman’s articles usually are) that I took the bait and did some Google searches on some of the events in it – which led me to Steve Friedman’s website:
http://stevefriedman.typepad.com/blog/new-stuff-october-2008.html
Sorry to dash your hopes – but the author himself says this is fiction. It’s a great story though – and I know firsthand that magical places like this do exist.