Photography Courtesy of Elizabeth Plantz
You may not know this about me, but I (Liz) am a huge introvert. It’s quite outside my nature to cold-call folks and ask if I can come to their house to ask them all sorts of questions. But there’s something I’ve learned about farming families, and that’s to expect an instant connection when it comes to passion and purpose, and this principle has never been more true than it was when we met with the Balfour family at Fern Hall Estate.
My prior experience with Fern Hall Estate & Woolery in Clifford, PA included waving to them across a farm festival and stalking their website to learn more about what they do. But when we showed up to their beautiful property a few hours before a wedding that was happening on-site, we couldn’t get enough, and we never ran out of things to talk about.
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Not only is Fern Hall absolutely stunning with its beautiful stone estate, the pristine fence lining verdant pastures dotted with silky white sheep… but the passion behind the project hangs in the air, filling it with excitement.
Adrian and Melanie Balfour are the owners and able stewards of this incredible farm. Melanie hails from near Clifford, not far from where the family lives now, while Adrian is from Ireland, where his family farm has been in operation for over 400 years. The couple have six children. Alannah, Ciara, Alexander, and Poppy are abroad, while Adrian Jr (13) and Matilda (11) are working the farm together with their parents.
The land where Fern Hall Estate now sits was deeded to Samuel Meredith, secretary to George Washington himself. He owned the property until about 1830 when it was purchased by the Johnson family, who moved there from Connecticut. They operated a farm on the land until their two sons moved off and created what we now now as Johnson & Johnson. The land continued on as a family retreat and even a hotel for a little while until it burnt in the early 1900s. In 1916, the elder of the two Johnson brothers built the house that stands there now. Amazingly enough, Adrian & Melanie have the original blue prints for the house and farm.
The house on the property came up for sale in 2018 and they had the opportunity in 2019 to purchase the estate and farm. They jumped at the chance, and now their endeavor is to restore the farm to its original blueprint and change the lives of those around them in the process. “It’s not very often you find the original blueprints for a historical farm,” Adrian told us, “down to the cabbage patch, the chickens, and the elm trees. We want to really bring the farm back to its original beauty.”
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The first thing you notice about Fern Hall Estate is the estate itself, the beautiful 19,000 square foot, ivy-laced stone building at the front of the property, surrounded by woods, fields, and right across from Crystal Lake in Clifford, PA. “We usually do retreats and weddings here at the estate,” Melanie explained, “but most often we have family rentals all summer long. We love to make it a very positive experience for them, sharing farm goods from local farmers around the area.” Adrian and Melanie shared that this is simply one of the areas on the farm that they are “growing into.”
The Balfours not only maintain the estate, but raise Merino sheep. They have about 150 in their herd, which they selected carefully and researched thoroughly. They chose the breed specifically for their silky, hydroscopic wool. Merino wool is comprised of 15-19 microns, where a basic sheep breed is at 40 microns; therefore, there is no scratchy feel to Merino wool that is usually attributed to sheep. Folks use Merino wool in socks, underwear, and often in athletic wear as it wicks moisture and is incredibly smooth. In fact, on my own close inspection petting one of the sweet rams, affectionately named “baby Joseph,” his shorn wool was almost iridescent, shiny to the touch.
The raising of these beautiful sheep is surely a passion project for the Balfour family as they hope to use all they’ve learned, and the doors they’ve been able to push open, to bless and inspire other farming families that come after them. “We created a non-profit called ‘Sustaining Ewe,’” Adrian told us, “which is about sustaining the farmer as well as the sheep, teaching the next generation about rotational regenerative farming. We hope to get more farms going, to create avenues for retail contracts for the wool that other farmers can connect with, with us serving as a resource to help them learn from all we’ve seen.”
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I can’t imagine a better way to start, as a first generation farmer, than to latch on to the knowledge and opportunities that have already been created for me by those who’ve come and paved the way. But that’s one of the great things about local farmers, isn’t it? They’re more than ready to help the next man behind them get a leg up.
And if they didn’t already have enough going on at the farm, the Balfour family also hosts a co-op on the property, where kids from the local community come and learn about various trades two days a week. They don’t just learn about farming; they learn about coding, robotics, writing, literature, carpentry. Adrian shared how they finished building boats in one of their recent projects and took them over to the lake where they had to then ride in them to win the contest. Adrian and Melanie try to bring in a varied array of experts from all over the world to give kids access to an endless scope of opportunities and passions they might pursue in their future. If you’d like to learn more about their co-op, check out their website at fernhallestate.com.
At the end of the day, you wonder if the Balfours consider all the work that lies ahead of them and ask themselves why they do it? Why work from before sun-up to after sun-down to plug away at this dream? Adrian said it perfectly: “In farming, for us anyway, we never go to bed without a smile on our faces. You look out on the open space and the beauty of the land; the presence of the animals is calming, and there’s a huge sense of basic satisfaction in achievement.”
We can’t wait to see everything that Fern Hall Estate will achieve in the days to come. We encourage you to check them out online. If you check out their Facebook page you can learn about open house dates. Put them on your calendar and circle them in red. You won’t want to miss it.