As a new participant in this website/discussion forum, I would like to add my two cent's worth. I have considered this possibility ever since converting to Holy Orthodoxy five years ago, and have spent a lot of time discussing this with my spiritual father, who would also like to see something like this happen, but we both despair that one could find enough people in America that are sufficiently motivated to make this work.
One thing that I think has been overlooked here though, is the example of our predecessors in Holy Russia...many of the towns/cities of Russia were basically at one time monasteries/hermitages, around which those who sought to know what God wanted for his people managed to settle and work out an existence. The nucleus was the monastery, it was the 'magnet' if you will, that attracted the 'iron'. This is Orthodox Community, the 'flesh' of the Church assembled around the 'backbone' of Monasticism. I believe that any attempt to form a community of this sort that does not FIRST look for a worthy spiritual community to revolve around would be asking for trouble at best, and would at worst, be doomed to failure. BTW, this also serves to alleviate the problem of "finding" a priest, since the monastery itself provides what is needed to sustain the work of the temple.
Don't concentrate so much on the 'hows' of support and sustenance. A man who truly wants to can work and support his family in many different circumstances/situations/locations. Humans have carved out existences in all regions from the Arctic to the heat of the Sahara and everything in between. That is not the problem, the problem is finding people who more than anything else, desire to make their lives revolve around the Church and the cycle of Services. Everything else is secondary. Everything else is really just an adjunct to the main issue. It is not Peasantry or Pleasantry that is the issue, it is assembling a community of believers. That can be done with or without electricity, with or without internet access (without which we wouldn't be having this discussion), with or without 'regular' professions and jobs. You could even shop at a Kroger's or Wal-Mart Super Store and still accomplish a simple, loving, Christ centered lifestyle, (as long as you make it back in time for Vespers!!).
I'm waiting to hear back from a priest on the idea (I hope he writes back anyway 
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