Business

The Work We Do: Larry Kaiser, 1760 Homestead Farm

My name is Larry Kaiser. I’m one of the owners of 1760 Homestead Farm. We’re located in Northville.

The property is 250 years old. It was built in 1760. My wife and I bought the property about five years ago. It’s on the town’s historic register. We petitioned the county to re-include it in the Farm Bureau so it’s registered as 4.5 acre working farm in New York State.

Originally, my wife and I were looking to expand our landscaping business to more of a growing operation and this size property allowed us to do that. The plans always evolved and changed and we realized that this could be more than a couple of greenhouses.

We grow heirloom vegetables, fresh cut flowers. The flowers allow us to have our own honey. We have some chickens, some goats, some horses.

This time of year we’re baking pies, so my day starts sometimes at 4 o’clock in the morning.

I’m down here in the kitchen baking the pies. Once the sun comes up, I go out and turn out the horses, feed the goats and water the chickens, and do the daily chores.

It just became very important to know where our food comes from. We’ve modeled this after a true homestead where you grow and live for sustenance and share the surplus. That’s kind of what we do. When you come in the stand, one day it could be peppers, next day it could be tomatoes. Whatever there is extra of.

It’s important to us to restore the house and preserve it. We’ve restored the barn to keep it from falling down. It was built in 1760 and you can’t just replace that with a modern day hammer and nail. We’re probably only the fourth owners in 250 years that it’s been in existence, and we work really hard to preserve things.

My favorite part is the tranquility at 6 a.m., with a cup of coffee and you just see baby turkeys walking through the property or the sunrise on the back pasture. There’s a sense of peace and wholesomeness with this. Like true North Fork charm. This has never changed.

“The Work We Do” is a News-Review multimedia project profiling workers around Riverhead Town. It is made possible by Peconic Landing in Greenport. See more photos on Instagram @riverheadnewsreview