Freshly dyed yellow merino wool yarn hangs in a window to dry.
The birds advanced ominously, 100 strong, chattering and squawking. A mob of aggressive panhandlers.

"Oh, it's feeding time," Margrit Lohrer said. She opened the can and began to scatter grain as roosters, ducks, Toulouse geese, sparrows, and wrens erupted in cacophonic celebration. A mallard hovered like a giant hummingbird, awkwardly attempting to eat while flapping above the jostling masses. A peacock strutted past as dogs loped around us barking with excitement. Two fuzzy Merino lambs curiously peered out from behind their mother in a nearby barn.

This animal paradise, which could be easily mistaken for the set of a Disney movie and has doubled as the backdrop for Martha Stewart photo shoots, is the Morehouse Farm, draped over 35 bucolic acres in the rocky, rolling hills of Milan, just east of the village of Red Hook. Ms. Lohrer was a graphic designer in Manhattan when she and her husband, architect Albrecht Pichler, purchased this 200-year-old farmstead in 1977.

Yarn and clothing on display at sheep's clothing, Morehouse Farm's retail outlet.
They eventually made their upstate getaway a full-time home in the mid '80s. After extensive research, Lohrer decided she wanted to grow superfine Merino sheep, renowned for their soft wool which rivals cashmere in thickness and texture. (To qualify as "superfine," by law a textile must measure between 15 and 18 microns.) The only obstacle was that there weren't any superfine Merino sheep to be found in the US at the time.

Margrit Lohrer with her prize ram.
Back in her retail store Sheep's Clothing, located on Route 199 at the intersection of Route 308, just over a mile from the farm, Ms. Lohrer related some of the seminal events from the company's 23-year wooly adventure. A sprightly woman with straight, graying hair, she is sharp, focused, and has a keen business sense. "As an agricultural business in Dutchess County," she said, "today that is something of a contradiction, because the land is too valuable, quite frankly, and if you are sitting on a $3 million parcel, you know what? You're not going to get up at four in the morning to milk your cows to make your $30,000 a year! So to succeed, you really need to come up with a new twist."

Everyone she initially asked about Merino sheep discouraged her for reasons including they are the greasiest, dirtiest, smelliest, wrinkliest, and slowest growing sheep breed on the planet. At a sheep breeding conference at Cornell University, a professor mocked Lohrer in front of a full auditorium. "Merino sheep? Leave those to the Australians!"  Because they didn't leave it to the Australians,

Lohrer and Pichler are directly responsible for reintroducing the once-popular sheep to the US. At a convention in Edmonton, Canada, Lohrer felt an Australian fleece she recalls  "resembled a cloud" and decided that was the stock she had to have. In 1986, they surreptitiously arranged for the anonymous purchase of two superfine rams at an annual international livestock auction in Australia. Following six months of quarantine in Hawaii, their prize rams arrived at Morehouse Farm just as the price of fine wool spiked around the world. 

Baa Baa Black Sheep

Evidence shows that sheep were one of the first domesticated livestock and that shepherding goes back thousands of years. In addition to their meat, sheep have always been valued for their wool. But don't go calling wool "hair." Wool is only produced from the outer coat of sheep. A few qualities that distinguish it from hair are scales, which overlap like shingles on a roof, and crimps, with some fleeces showing fibers with more than 20 bends per inch. The other major difference is the fact that hair and fur have a hollow core, while wool has a solid core. A typical sheep produces 10 pounds of wool a year, which equals five pounds of processed yarn. With the average sweater weighing about a pound and a half, most sheep are wearing four sweaters by the time they are sheared.

Black sheep are the product of a recessive gene, and traditionally undesirable. They were usually killed as soon as they were born, because one black sheep can contaminate the wool of an entire flock of white sheep. However, fortune has turned for black sheep: Their fleece is now more valued than white fleece.

Lohrer related how at one point Ralph Lauren wanted an exclusive deal to buy all of the black wool Morehouse produced and she was forced to make a difficult decision concerning the desirable textile. "I figured Ralph Lauren would use it for a while and then he would be onto the next thing and then itwould be runied for all of our customers," said Lohrer. Bold enough to turn down a brand name in favor of the bigger picture, their business didn't suffer one bit. To this day, Morehouse Farm has one of the largest flocks of black merinos in the country and produces a gorgeous line of natural undyed yarns through blending white and black wools.  —JDK

She said with a laugh, "All of a sudden we came across as really smart cookies because we got these guys into the country at just the right time as prices—bang!—went through the roof. We were the owners of two of the finest merinos in the States, with the superfinest wool. So we began by advertising semen, and, man, they couldn't produce enough."

Lohrer credits their success to their ability to recognize changes in the market and adapt their business model while staying true to her initial vision of producing the finest yarn available.

The popularity of merinos surged with the price of wool, and Lohrer and Pichler found themselves providing breeding stock for farms across the nation as the surge became a craze. As supply caught up to demand, the craze subsided and the price of merinos came back to earth. In response, they turned the focus of the business from breeding to wool and yarn production.

When she first opened Sheep's Clothing more than 10 years ago on the farm, Lohrer, an expert knitter, initially planned on turning her superfine yarns into finished goods, but soon noticed that it was the yarn that filled out the shop that was selling the fastest. At the same time, they were cultivating a wholesale business selling fine yarns to customers such as Ralph Lauren. As the shop began to support the farm, they briefly moved away from wholesaling and focused on retail, expanding their product line to include hundreds of various weights and colors of yarn.

Then Lohrer came up with the idea that would shift the focus of the business yet again. She began to design custom knitting kits that included the pattern, skeins of yarn, and the needles, if needed. The response was overwhelming, and when the retail outlet on Route 199 opened up a few years ago, their success forced a move to accommodate their increased business volume.

In only two years since making web orders available, Lohrer said that it has grown to almost 50 percent of their business. Gesturing to the shelves of books on knitting that dominate the back sunroom where people hold knitting classes, Lohrer said, "Knitting became so fashionable about two to three years ago, it's just the hottest new thing, even with younger people. So why should I take time making things when there is this huge growth potential?"

This remarkably busy woman recently found the time to write a book, Merino Knits: A Collection of 40 Farm Fresh Designs, which is both a pattern book and coffee-table history of Morehouse Farm. Lohrer and Pichler are currently on the Ram in a Van Book Tour with Alfie the book-signing ram. Check out www.morehousefarm.com or visit Sheep's Clothing on Route 199 in Milan at the intersection of 308. Farm tours are available. (845) 758-3710.