4 units · Motorhomes, Tents15 acres · Brant, ONIt was 1984 when John found his ‘diamond in the rough’, 20 acres with an orchard on the outskirts of Brantford.
O.K., so the house was nothing to write home about but perfect for building a construction yard…no neighbors except for the family across the road that used their property to build log homes.
By 1987 the old house was gone, a new one was being built and a shop for working on heavy equipment had been located about 200 ft. from Dr. the back door.
It wasn’t until 1996 that things changed very much.
Yes, the property around the house had benefitted from a wide array of trees and shrubs that John saved from the construction/demolition jobs he had done and that still thrive today but no big projects (except for equipment purchases) were ongoing.
A chance meeting with the neighbor across the road one day resulted in the following dinner conversation, ‘How was your day’ I chirped. ‘Not bad, so-and-so didn’t come in; the truck broke down and I took it for repair; I bought the property across the road, and oh, yeah I’ll need a ride after dinner to pick up the truck’ was John’s casual reply. ‘What was that’? I pressed. ‘Yes, I need a ride after dinner to pick up the truck’ he repeated with a bit more volume. Of course like anyone, I had questions, ‘Do you want peas or corn with dinner’? ‘What time do you want to go to get the truck’?
‘The property across the road’, 10 acres, still has the 4 storey barn with its twin tiled silos which was built in 1914 and the big white house with wrap around porch that once was home to a Doctor and his family. Built so the Doctor could see his patients in the front with the family living in the back was very common in the day.
Things remained relatively peaceful until 2000 when after studying alpacas for more than 6 years I bought our first three.
Back in 2000 alpacas and llamas were not frequently seen on farms and because they could been seen from the road they received A LOT of attention.
People driving by would stop and ask about them, ask if they could take a picture or two and that was when I would hear over and over again ‘You have a beautiful place here, I wish I/we could stay’.
Well, if you want to visit and stay in the city it’s doable, we call it a hotel. But visiting a farm and staying well, that isn’t so easy.
Each year we would see more and more families coming to ‘The Farm’ as they would call it.
Some came to see the alpacas and horses, some came for a stroll and to check out the horse drawn milk and bread delivery wagons, some to have family birthday parties, others to have engagement/wedding/Christmas card pictures…and so many asked if there was any way they could spend a day or two.
In 2021 during a conversation with a friend I mentioned we were in the process of gutting the 1100 sq. ft. space downstairs and turning it into an Airbnb! Right away she said, ‘I don’t know why you don’t have a Hipcamp? You’ve got that great area by the new barn that Hipcampers would love’!
After a little investigation I found out what a Hipcamp was…and as they say, the rest is future.
