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House for Sale: Living the Good Life on a Blueberry Farm

by The Yankee Moseyer

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Built in 1984 on 8-1/2 acres, the house is just a short walk from the farm's blueberry fields.

Before they farmed blueberries, owners Mark and Betty Garrison grew Christmas trees.

With oak floors and a 10-foot ceiling, the living room overlooks Narragansett Bay.

This is the farm stand where Rocky Point's customers pay for the blueberries they've picked.

To keep out hungry birds, netting covers this entire field during the summer months.

Mark built the stone steps that follow a stream down to this small pond.

On the home's lower level are two additional bedrooms, plus an "in-law apartment."

Narragansett Bay can be seen from the home's deck, as well as the living and dining areas.

Our first question to Mark and Betty Garrison, owners of Rocky Point Blueberry Farm in Warwick, Rhode Island, was: "What inspired you to turn this beautiful residential property into a farm?" We were having coffee in the living room of the three-bedroom (plus "in-law apartment") house designed by Mark and built in 1984, while admiring the lovely view of Narragansett Bay in the distance beyond the spacious front deck.

"The minute we looked at our first property-tax bill," Mark answered with a smile. Obviously, the town of Warwick had put a high value on the Garrisons' newly acquired eight and a half acres, once part of the U.S. Senator Nelson Aldrich (1841-1915) estate. But if the property could be categorized as a farm, the taxes would be significantly lower. So, for sure, a farm it would be.

Mark and Betty first opted for a Christmas-tree farm, but then, after seeing how well several wild-blueberry bushes on the property were doing, they purchased 1,000 cultivated blueberry bushes and cleared two acres where the property bordered Rocky Point Avenue. (Their house, about a five-minute woodsy walk from the cleared field, is on Aldrich Avenue.) Then they transplanted their new bushes to those two cleared acres, added another 1,200 bushes, waited about four years for those 2,200 bushes to produce blueberries, and, voila, they owned a blueberry farm.

Starting in 1991, after the farm had been featured in several local newspapers, and the Garrisons had obtained some mailing lists and later visited a few farm Web sites, oodles of customers of all ages began coming to their new farm stand during July and August, the blueberry-picking season. With the colorful pails that Mark and Betty provided, they proceeded to pick to their hearts' content, paying $1.85 a pound but enjoying considerably lower prices through "frequent-picker discounts." Last year the Garrisons sold about 10 tons of blueberries, realizing about $30,000, close to their yearly average. (For the past couple of years, they've turned much of the operation over to their friend and neighbor, Paula Palumbo, who receives a percentage of the profits.)

We asked Mark about the possibility of expanding the business. "Well, more land could easily be cleared for more blueberry bushes," he replied. He also pointed out that new owners might want to raise prices a bit and perhaps wholesale their blueberries if they were willing to pack them into containers, deliver them to stores, and so forth.

Yes, Mark and Betty have reached an age when, despite lots of help, occasionally even from their four children and nine grandchildren, they've decided to retire from farming and live in a smaller house. After all, blueberry farming isn't just picking blueberries. Every year, the fields need to be mulched, the plants pruned and fertilized, and the bushes sprayed several times (using nonchemical pesticides so that customers can be tasting while picking). And, before the berries ripen, netting has to be put over the entire two acres to keep away the birds--and then taken down again every fall.

They could sell this beautiful property to a developer for, we'd guess, around a million dollars, maybe more. Then there would be houses instead of blueberries. But Mark and Betty appreciate how much people in the Warwick area love bringing their children and grandchildren here to pick blueberries. Like everyone else, they want Rocky Point Blueberry Farm to continue. So they've decided to put the entire property under a conservation easement, which means it will be forever limited to agriculture or open space. It also means that the price comes down to $550,000. Included in that price are the house and a small barn, a two-car garage, a lean-to greenhouse/workshop, a storage building, most of Mark's farming tools and equipment, and even a 1986 Toyota truck. Prospective owners may negotiate for the John Deere tractor with loader and backhoe.