The Heirloom Farm story began as an idea and a far off dream as we were just kids when we fell in love. Then we married 34 years ago in 1990. It was a “someday” that we talked about for many, many years while we raised three children and worked tirelessly at our careers. It was during this time that we would talk about maybe having a Bed and Breakfast or some business together that was a combination of all the things we enjoyed and felt we were passionate about. In the meantime, we were lucky enough, after much searching, to find 4 acres of beautiful rural landscape in northern California just outside the Bay Area where we raised our family and honed our skills at home building, gardening, keeping livestock, and cooking. We grew and managed a small vineyard of Zinfandel and tried our hands at making wine for a hobby.
As a boy Dan spent his summers on a farm near the Oregon border where farming was a way of life and forever engrained in his DNA. Later Dan worked construction and progressed to an operations manager in heavy civil construction with his largest job being the renovation and re construction of the San Francisco Bay Bridge.
After taking several jobs working around the kids schedules and raising a family. Monica started to take on several beginning catering jobs then decided to start a small catering and events business on Treasure Island in San Francisco. Her culinary talents were refined and tested after numerous weddings and corporate events with her largest job being a 24/7 event for 6 days and nights for 600 hungry construction workers. During their busy professional lives they still managed to host several fundraising events at there home, garden and help the kids with their 4H projects teaching them the importance of animal care and whole foods.
When Dan had a chance to retire after more than 30 years in his industry, we knew it was time for a new adventure! We narrowed our search to about ten locations we wanted to visit and Middle Tennessee was the last place we landed and we were immediately sold. The lush green landscape and friendly people had us yearning to be part of this place so we sold our first dream home that had been built almost entirely with our own hands and took the leap to buy some land in the community we first fell in love with, Leipers Fork. We immediately set to making it our own, knowing that this is a long term plan. We are beginning to farm this beautiful land near the creek that runs along the front of the property where the alluvial soil has been settling from runoff from the great hardwoods above for centuries. This land was largely untouched which gave us so many options and the freedom to develop it the way that we felt served us, and, more importantly,
the land in the best possible way. We are so lucky to be surrounded by a community of farmers and we are here to learn from them and work that into our own special way to care for this very special piece of the earth. We want to utilize our combined talents to provide an education and experience that is sometimes lost in today’s large scale, fast moving society. As our plan unfolds we will be hosting gatherings and special events partnering with some of the other talented chefs and purveyors in our community.
Nature is the real owner of this beautiful land and we want to respect her in all that we do here, remembering that our duty is to be good stewards of what we have been blessed to care for while providing locally grown and sustainable products and services that provide value and meaning to our community.
We feel incredibly lucky to have found the perfect spot to continue the Heirloom Farm story and we can’t wait to take you on this journey with us as new friends.
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