Chelsea Hatcher is moving a bit of her old home to her new one, transporting the greenhouse her father once built at her childhood home to a piece of the property in New Ipswich where she and her husband Ben have been developing a smallholder farm.
Hatcher grew up at 55 Old Tenney Road, in a historic home that was once a tavern and working farm. Her parents didn’t work the farm when she was growing up, she said, but they did have a passion for flowers and had a vegetable garden.
In 1992, her father decided he wanted a greenhouse – despite not really having the need for one.
“My mother said, ‘We don’t need a greenhouse, what are we going to do with that?’ And what was supposed to be a simple, inexpensive project turned into much more than that,” said Hatcher.
Later, it became an inside joke for the family – that Hatcher’s mother had one get-out-of-jail free card the next time she asked for something totally crazy and not really necessary (a card she never ended up cashing, Hatcher said). But Hatcher’s father got his greenhouse, which he used to grow flowers and vegetables. Though he only grew for his family’s own use, Hatcher said she has fond memories of it.
“There were always flower beds everywhere, along every stone wall. It was beautiful. Both of them really enjoyed it,” Hatcher said. And she and her brother would sometimes make use of the vegetable garden as an excuse to stay outside longer, filching vegetables to eat for lunch straight from the vine.
The house was sold after Hatcher finished high school, and most of the expansive farmland was placed into conservation. But a large parcel – about 39 acres on Greenville Road – was kept in the family, and that’s where Hatcher and her husband now live and are making a go of their own farm, known as Old Homestead.
Her former home is now a working sheep farm, under the name Old Tavern Farm. While the land on Old Tavern Farm is being worked again, the owners didn’t really have a use for the greenhouse. They asked Hatcher if she knew anyone who might want it.
“I said, ‘We’ll take it!” Hatcher said.
However, getting it from point A to point B was a challenge, one that was ultimately solved by deciding to lift the entire building and move it in a single piece by flatbed, a Herculean undertaking. The Hatchers created a custom foundation at their farm, where the greenhouse will sit, and the building will be lifted from its current foundation and trucked to its new home, with police escort.
The original plan was to move the greenhouse Saturday, but it was postponed because they couldn’t get the police detail. Once the greenhouse is in its new location, the Hatchers are ready to put it to practical use and get it in service again.
It was perfect timing, Hatcher said, as she and her husband had started to create their own farm a few years ago, at the start of the pandemic, and now have a small farm featuring raising beef cattle, pig, chickens and turkey, as well as boarding horses. The couple has a co-op store on the farm, but the produce they sell there is secured from other small farms in the area.
Hatcher said the next step for them was to start growing their own produce, and to have her father’s greenhouse makes that dream a little extra special.
“It’s definitely a very sentimental piece for me. My brother and I both miss the old house an awful lot. It was the best childhood you could imagine, there was so much space to roam and play,” Hatcher said. “I think it’ll be really cool to have the greenhouse move, not only because it was a fun part of my childhood, but because we’re still connected to that childhood farm.”
It’s the kind of life she wants now for her two daughters, Adeline, 3, and Aubrey, 2.
“When you live on a farm, you learn how to work hard and real-life lessons every day,” Hatcher said. “They see how communal farming can be, there’s always people at the farm, it’s a great life for them. We’ve loved to partner with really small businesses that don’t have a good platform to be selling their stuff. The more we partner and try to promote other businesses, the better everyone does. It’s been really cool to watch that happen.”
Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172, Ext. 244, or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.