Long Hill Farm is a family run property which specializes in historical and heirloom vegetable varieties from around the world. Cait and Robert purchased the property with a passion for home renovation but quickly became two accidental farmers.
We are on a mission to discover what we didn't know we lost.
Located in Bolton Massachusetts, Long Hill Farm started as a home renovation dream. An 1810 brick Federal style home came on the market in 2015 only to sit vacant for a year. But, this was just the home we had been searching for. It was obvious from the first walk through that if properties could talk this one would have endless stories. Built in the late 1700's and modified over the years it was need of some love - just the kind of love we were looking to give. This started the year long renovation on Long Hill Farm which admittedly, with any old home renovation, is still very much an ongoing project.
Renovating old homes runs in Cait's blood. She holds fond memories of the years she watched her parents spend nights and weekends working on their next home. Over the years she heard "this one is a tear down" but her parents never saw what others did. Instead they instilled in Cait the ability to see beyond the facade and instead to look at the structure and all its possibilities. If the bones were good then everything else was merely cosmetic. This sense of wonder and renovation has followed Cait throughout her entire life and no property is safe from modification when she is around.
While home renovation doesn't run in Robert's veins the same it does for Cait, as a child he saw his father meticulously work on finished carpentry projects and various home projects that instilled in Robert a can-fix attitude with no project being too big. He took these lessons of meticulous attention and it-can-be-figured-out and applied it to our first home renovation project in 2009 in Carlisle, MA. If was the perfect property to cut our teeth on as a couple.
After living in the Carlise home for 5 years we had two options - build onto the existing house or buy a new one. After much deliberation (we're talking months) and endless real estate searches we decided to move but not without some hesitation.
Cait has always had a passion for real estate. She could probably tell you the current price of properties anywhere in the world. Call is a strange hobby but she frequently searches out properties across the globe.
In 2016 she stumbled upon Long Hill Farm which was exactly the type of house we were looking for: antique, run down, and in need of some serious love. In January 2016 Cait said to Robert, I'm going to look at a house do you want to come? He did not as the price was well outside their comfort zone. She went anyways.
After looking at the home and conveying her dismay to Robert about not coming they went back to together resulting in an low ball offer and a letter. The letter to the sellers communicated our desire to restore the property and bring it back to it's previous state.
Against all odds, it worked. Within 24 hours a price had been agreed upon and the closing date had been set. We won't go into too much detail about what followed because we'll be writing quite a bit about what ensued during the first year of renovations. But, we can say it was quite and continues to be quite the adventure. There were days we wondered what had we done. Robert almost fell off a ladder (after Cait told him not to get on it), nights of rain pouring into the house (we had no roof at the time and we were foolish to live in the structure during the renovation), firing of contractors, and Cait just about losing it with design details.
In the end we have ended up with a home we love but that hasn't stopped us. Part of the Long Hill Farm promise was to bring the grounds back up to a working farm. We have committed to preserving historical variety vegetables, fruits, and flowers. It has been quite the learning process but each day brings new insight and new opportunities.
The Long Hill Farm renovation and preservation has brought about our motto: discovering what we didn't know what we lost. We are firm believers in restoring the past while introducing modern conveniences. Long Hill Farm has come to embrace those often time represented contradictions into one fluid being.
Join us on our adventure as we continue to renovate our home and venture into the world of farming.