Lisa Barone remembers traveling from Long Island to visit relatives on a family farm in Montgomery as a child. The farm, she recalls, was beautiful, as were the memories made. But it was never her intention to take it over. “My trajectory was always to make it to New York City,” Barone says. At 18, she did just that, landing a Manhattan job in packaging sustainability. “I've lost sleep over adhesive,” she says with a laugh. In her next position, though, the nights would only grow longer.
While working in the sustainability space, Barone was approached by a chef who suggested she give cooking a try. “It felt really right,” she says. “I loved the creative aspect of it.” Barone fell headfirst into the culinary industry and landed a sous chef position within the Winer Village at Bryant Park. There, she met Mike Nelson: CIA grad, accomplished chef, and cannabis connoisseur. As colleagues, the two became fast friends. Their partnership—both personal and professional—followed swiftly.
Once dating, Barone and Nelson worked together as chef consultants for restaurateurs. “We would come in and reset pretty much everything,” Barone explains. The pair brought operational know-how and culinary finesse to kitchens across New York, but they had another project on the backburner. In their Washington Heights apartment, Barone and Nelson had started an edible cannabis enterprise for a growing network of consumers. “We both were running businesses for other owners,” Nelson explains. “And I think eventually you scratch your head and say, ‘Oh, I could run a business for me, instead of for them.’”
This epiphany came in 2016, when medicinal cannabis was first legalized. Although Nelson and Barone operated outside of the legal market, business soared. “We quit all jobs,” Barone says. “Once we started to make edibles, I think we both were like ‘We don't want to do anything else.’” The plan was simple: create delicious cannabis products that promote consumer wellness and produce as little waste as possible.
Research and development turned out to be more complicated. “We found that most of the things in your average gummy bear you probably don't want to consume,” Nelson says. The pair began testing natural alternatives to the harmful dyes and synthetic flavors used in most sweets. “We had been diving into herbalism and culinary pairing and really understanding the full terpene profile in cannabis and botanicals,” Barone says. At the crossroads of cannabis and cuisine, Barone and Nelson started their business. They called it The Herbal Confectionery. Under this moniker, the couple engineered products designed to heal: to alleviate pain, to facilitate sleep, to increase appetite.
Escape from New York
At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, need grew for the kind of medicine that Barone and Nelson were making. Operations outsized the space—still the same Washington Heights apartment that the pair started out in. Something needed to change. “It was very clear,” Barone says, “we were growing too much. We were like, ‘Let's get out of here. Let's move upstate. We're ready to leave the city.’”
They began to search for a space outside of the five boroughs. One rental, a small house in Fishkill, stood out. The location was perfect, Barone says. “That's where we were going to be able to continue to supply our existing clientele down in the city, but sort of break into the Hudson Valley.”
In May of 2020, Barone and Nelson moved upstate and brought the business with them. Across the river in Montgomery, the family farm of Barone’s memory was still producing specialty fruits and vegetables for consumption throughout the region. Nelson had no idea. “Unbeknownst to me, my wife's second cousin is a phenomenal farmer who's been known throughout New York City for almost four decades,” he says. That cousin, Morse Pitts, is the mind behind Windfall Farms: a 142-acre farm preserve hosting multiple lessee farmers who share a penchant for stewardship and a commitment to sustainable agriculture.
When Barone and Nelson first visited Windfall as a couple in 2020, “a lightbulb went off,” Barone says. Up to this point, she and Nelson had searched for years to find quality, natural ingredients to incorporate into their growing line of cannabis products. “In order to get these really high-quality ingredients,” she realized, “we should be growing them.” A 12-by-12 foot garden at the Fishkill house was the couple’s first foray into growing. A few months after seeds went down in the backyard, Pitts called. He was ready to retire and leave Windfall. “He was really upset,” Barone explains, “because it's been in our family for a really long time.” Her solution? Take over the farm with Nelson.
An Unexpected Windfall
The couple started small, helping Pitts with harvesting and expanding Windfall’s presence in farm markets. Production efforts at The Herbal Confectionery had slowed to focus on preparing for the legal market. With time away from their existing business, the couple immersed themselves in the world of farming. Longtime Windfall lessees Wood Thrush Farm and Row 7 Seed Company showed the couple the ropes, introducing them to a Windfall style of farming they call Unconventionally Grown: “We never use pesticides, herbicides, fungicides or synthetic fertilizer,” Barone explains. “We grow diversely and we will only handle things in natural elements.”
In 2021, she and Nelson fully assumed operations and moved into the farmhouse at Windfall. This, Barone says, was a moment of sheer wonder. “I remember standing on the front lawn… the first week we moved in,” she says, thinking: “I can't believe that I've been running everywhere else trying to search all over the world for what my purpose is when… all I had to do was come back to the farm.”
As apprentices under Pitts, Barone and Nelson are learning how to carry on a legacy. Sowing and reaping is a relatively small part of that. As the next generation of Windfall stewards, the couple have a long row to hoe: preserving a habitat for animals and insects, providing widespread access to affordable, quality produce, and paving the way for future generations of farmers. Like every tenant, steward, and friend of Windfall thus far, Barone and Nelson come with their own definition of what it means to be a farmer. Cannabis is an integral part of it. “We're not in cannabis because we want to just make a bunch of money,” Barone explains. “We're in it because we really care about that plant, and we want people to use it as medicine, and we want it to be just as accessible as the lettuce that we're selling next to it.” The couple are not yet licensed to cultivate cannabis, but it grows at Windfall under the purview of licensed lessee company Supernaturals New York.
When Supernaturals came to Windfall, it gave the couple “the opportunity to see how cannabis grows at Windfall,” Barone says, “which wasn't even something that we expected to get to see.” In their pending license from the OCM, they hope to get the green light on their own cultivation plans.
Barone and Nelson applied for a cannabis microbusiness license earlier this year. This classification will allow the couple to cultivate, process, and sell cannabis products. “We didn't want to be only a retailer, and we didn't want to be only a cultivator,” says Nelson. “That microbusiness helps you cross that retail and producer threshold, which I think just matches our style.” In order to apply for a license, the pair needed to secure a retail space. They searched far and wide for available storefronts, but struggled to find a landlord who supported their plan.
One morning, during a routine search for spaces, Barone clicked on the listing for the storefront that will house The Herbal Confectionery. She hadn’t even had her coffee yet. “There's no way this is real,” she remembers thinking, “There's no way—this entity has been here for so long.” The listing—a spacious spot on Water Street in New Paltz—was one she knew well. It was The Groovy Blueberry. Amy and Jon Cohen have owned and operated The Groovy Blueberry for decades. For Barone and Nelson, the story mirrors their coming to Windfall: legacy owners, ready to retire, opened their arms at the perfect time. Barone and Nelson quickly signed the lease, along with New York City-based food advocate and bookkeeping partner Tyler Hefferon. The Herbal Confectionery had found a home. Fusing their love for cannabis, cuisine, and agriculture, the trio plan to open a cafe and farm market in the famous storefront. The plan, Nelson says, “draws from a lot of inspiration from the Amsterdam coffee shop, with the concept of being able to purchase smokeable flower, sit down and smoke a joint, and have a cappuccino.”
“We're not in cannabis because we want to just make a bunch of money. We're in it because we really care about that plant, and we want people to use it as medicine, and we want it to be just as accessible as the lettuce that we're selling next to it.”—Lisa Barone of The Herbal Confectionery
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In the adjacent farm market—dubbed the Windfall Farms Community Store—guests will be able to purchase Windfall produce alongside fresh, local provisions from a network of growers and makers akin to the farm. Phoenicia Soap Co. products will dot the shelves amidst pantry goods from Autonomous Coffee, Rising River Bakehouse, and East Branch Farms.
Barone and Nelson have notified the village of New Paltz of their plans, but are still waiting on a licensing decision from New York State, which will take some time given the state’s slow license rollout. They plan to open this spring, no matter the outcome. “We may be waiting another two years to get a license,” Barone says. “So instead we would simply launch a cafe in the same exact model, just without cannabis.”
The couple trusts that everything will work out, and they have good reason to. “We never planned to be here, really,” Barone says. “The business organically moved its way through the universe, and every step we took was a step in the right direction.” As she and Nelson see it, the step to New Paltz is the serendipitous next.
