Throughout the natural world there’s a phenomenon that feels a little like magic: Take a few simple ingredients, add the right catalyst, and then watch as the mixture transforms into something extraordinary. With bread, explains Gavin Wassung, digital strategist by day, gentleman farmer on weekends, that alchemical agent is yeast. “There’s something magical about yeast—just add sugar and boom! It grows! How can something so tiny do such amazing things?”
Yeast, Wassung notes, also turns grapes into wine, but the real magic of vinification comes with cultivation. “Growing grape vines is easy,” he says. “It’s how you steward them, and then what happens on harvest day when you pick, stem, and crush them that’s magic.” Similarly, the super organization of bees transforms pollen into honey; fresh sunlight cracks long dormant seeds turning them into rhododendrons or lilacs; and it’s still undecided whether the chicken acts as alchemical agent for the egg, or it’s the egg that magically transforms into the chicken.
Walking through the Pleasant Valley property Wassung shares with his wife, Lily Johnson, it’s clear the magic that converted simple ingredients—two overgrown acres, a modest `70s-era home—into a bountiful tiny farm, was actually Wassung and Johnson. They transformed the mundane lot into a little Eden, with multiple vegetable and flower gardens, a micro vineyard, overflowing apiary, flocks of ducks and chickens, and one careening toddler. We’ve partnered with nature to create useable, inviting spaces,” says Johnson. “Plants will always grow, but everything grows better when cared for.”
Earth to Lily and Gavin
The couple first came to the Hudson Valley in 2017 when they bought a house on a quarter acre in Beacon. They were living in Brooklyn and both in cerebral, city-based careers—Johnson produced film and TV media, Wassung was a business strategist—and needed a place to come down to earth on weekends. Slowing down and reconnecting to nature was good medicine. Wassung, who grew up in Connecticut, began a series of pursuits that took him from his head back into his hands. “Being on computers all day doesn’t reflect reality,” he says. “So, when I moved to the Hudson Valley I was drawn to several new hobbies.” Inspired by his great grandmother, he began baking bread. That led to candle making, then beer brewing, and eventually to an interest in winemaking.
Johnson, a Colorado native, felt the urge to follow her family’s farming tradition. “I’ve always loved my parents’ and grandparents’ vegetable and flower gardens. My great grandfather was a well-known sugar beet farmer,” she says. “Growing up, we had a peach orchard. In fact, we gave away the peaches at our wedding as favors.” She planted a garden and experimented with creative designs in their yard.
They soon outgrew both their quarter acre, and the postage stamp allotment of weekend time upstate. So, they planted another garden—this one on a rented 20-by-20-foot plot at nearby Stony Kill Farm—and, with some additional office space rented from Beacon’s Beahive coworking space, transitioned to full-time life in the Hudson Valley.
Room to Grow
They were already feeling confined by their Beacon arrangement when the 2020 lockdown pushed them over the edge. “I tried to keep my office just to support Beahive,” says Wassung. That wasn’t sustainable, and he began to work from home. “Lily had her office in the second bedroom and I was working from the kitchen,” he says. “It was cramped.”
“The pandemic gave us the push we needed to hunt for a home that had both the exterior and interior space to dream,” says Johnson. Built in 1973, the two-story Pleasant Valley home was like a Nixon-era time capsule. Linoleum prevailed throughout the first-floor open kitchen and dining area, and shag carpeting lined the home’s sunken living room. A spiral staircase led to the second-floor landing with vaulted ceilings, three adjoining bedrooms, and two dated bathrooms.
The home had a deck and a small fenced-in yard, but beyond that the two acres were wild terrain. It didn’t deter the couple. “It was completely overgrown with trees and brush,” says Wassung. “There were old tires dumped in the bushes.” They liked that the property was within walking distance to town, but felt completely secluded because of the angle of the plot. “After we ascend the steep driveway and pass through a small forest, it feels as if we are in our own private estate,” says Johnson. The 2,000-square-foot house and two acres was just enough. “I felt like I could dream big, and like I could experiment and make mistakes,” she says. “It felt like a blank canvas.”
Family Project
They bought the property in 2021 and immediately got to work. “We have renovated the heck out of this house,” says Johnson. They removed the dated spiral staircase and pulled up the linoleum and carpeting throughout the first floor. They uncovered and restored wide-plank barn floors throughout the first floor and, by adding better steps, glass sliders, and tiling to the sunken living room, transformed it into an extra office space for Johnson.
Rebuilding the staircase and second-floor landing was a challenge further complicated by the pandemic-induced contractor shortage. The couple took a chance and hired Wassung’s 25-year-old cousin, Christian Neary, to help with the project. “He was ready to leave his job in welding and open a woodworking studio,” says Johnson. “So we sent him pictures of what we wanted and he came up with something beautiful.” Neary designed the floating wood and metal staircase and built the stringers by hand. He also opened and revamped the second-floor landing. Upstairs, they removed more carpeting and gutted the bathroom, adding new tiles as well as a walk-in shower and a full tub.
They were so happy with the results that they commissioned a custom table for a corner dining spot overlooking the yard. “He used the same maple as our staircase and welded beautiful brass legs to fit the space,” says Johnson. “It has optimized our ability to host dinner parties, which I love.”
Turning Acres into Wine
Over three years they transformed the surrounding property, and in the process transformed themselves. “It’s been our greatest pleasure to reclaim and enhance these spaces,” says Johnson. They began by uncovering the gardens closest to the house, rehabbing decades-old lilacs and rhododendrons. After clearing and then expanding the immediate yard, they added a berry garden on one side of the house and a chicken coop and herb garden on the other. Inspired by a trip to France, they also added copious lavender and more lilac bushes, along with vegetable and flower gardens.
Beyond the property’s standalone garage, the couple cleared an additional wild acre.” One day I just started trimming and cutting,” explains Wassung. “When it was cleared, we suddenly had more space to dream. It was transformational.” Wassung used the space to establish a colony of bees. He also planted a micro-vineyard which, after three years, has fruited, fermented, and is almost ready to sip. Meanwhile, the two transformed into three when their son was born a year ago.
Right outside the garage another ad-hoc structure has become a cocoon, leading to Johnson’s personal metamorphosis. After finding an aluminum-and-foam-insulated frame on Craigslist for free, the couple established a three-season greenhouse. It’s central to Johnson’s life redesign: After taking advantage of New York State’s paid family leave for six months, she was able to rethink her priorities. “The time gave me the courage to live a more intentional pace of life,” she says. “I knew I wanted to nurture and help things grow, to spend time outside; to be on my feet and get my hands in the soil all day long.”
She decided to take her project management skills and apply them to landscape design, helping homeowners develop personal connections to their land and a sense of sanctuary. “It’s my vocation to work with nature to create new life,” she says. “Nature plays a powerful role in our lives.”
This article appears in November 2024.
