We Bought a Farm

A DREAM COME TRUE

We made a giant leap of faith and bought an old farm estate! It was once a 300+ acre wheat farm north of Old Town Arvada, but today only 2.7-acres remain including the original farm estate built in 1949.  Over the years, the farmland was developed into the Sierra Vista neighborhood so what remains of the farm is surrounded by urban sprawl. This little gem that we found seems like a gift and a dream come true. A place that will allow us to cultivate beauty, raise our children among a simpler lifestyle, and restore a unique property while still living in the city.    

This scares me to death and brings me to life all at the same time.  Dreaming about farming and actually signing a loan to buy a farm feels a little like being pushed into the pool and praying I can swim.   This is really happening and there is no turning back now! I can’t walk away. We just signed a 30 year mortgage and won a $98K Colorado Film Incentive  to document us transforming this property which could kill us physically, humiliate us publicly, or empower us physically and spiritually. Perhaps it could do all three but we just signed up to take that risk. Our goal is to create something truly magical with sustainability as its hallmark. 

The process of finding this farm was complete serendipity.  Rodman has been walking alot lately, and one day he happened to walk by this expansive property in our neighborhood.  We never noticed it before as its tucked into a section of our neighborhood that isn’t on our main route. He said he wanted to write a letter to the owners because its looked vacant, which I have done several time before on different properties with no luck. The next week he walked by it again and was shocked to see a for sale sign in the yard! 

Rewind a few months earlier, Rodman renewed his real estate broker license so he’d be ready when the right opportunity presented itself.  Now with broker license in hand he was able to called the seller’s agent to schedule a showing right away. Literally the day it hit the market, we were the first to tour it and we submitted an offer by 5 o'clock the same day.  I’ve been searching for property for the last 4 years since we sold our home.  Passing hundreds of home listings by Rodman since he’s the real estate guru in our house.  Most often he would grumble over the price, and go into a tangent about the real estate market in Colorado, or he would shrug it off as uninspiring.  I gave up and focused my efforts elsewhere. A month earlier we even let go of producing a 3rd season of Urban Conversion. We had envisioned the next season to be a culmination of lessons in action from the first two seasons, but after years of not finding the right property,  we were at a stand still. Tears were shed. We let it go and had started to move on.

Just when we started moving in a different direction, out of thin air this unique property that checks all the boxes for every single person in our family showed up.  Its on 3 acres of land for farming ventures, big mature trees, an inspiring house to document to transform, a pool for the kids (that was really their only checkbox), was close to the kids school, and was valued fairly.  To say we were excited was an understatement.  Now after a stressful month of keeping it a secret and going through all the activities to make it official, its finally ours!  We didn't see it coming until it was right in front of our face, and now the upcoming year has a completely different plan. Our film crew is being rallied back together, we were awarded a film incentive rebate from the State of Colorado, and we are seeking designers and experts to bring this home and farm back to life.   

 

A lot to be grateful for this season,

Gina

 

Gina Schley1 Comment