Goodbye City Life
Niko Christou
by Beth S. Buxbaum
The Carousel Farm was meant to be a retreat from the high powered and hectic lives of a New York photographer, Niko Christou, and a Manhattan attorney, David Braff. They bought the centuries old Solebury property on Mechanicsville Road in 2000 as a weekend getaway, not realizing at the time that they would someday be harvesting 15,000 lavender plants per year.
Niko, born and raised in Cyprus, came to the United States some 30 years ago to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology where he majored in photography. After graduating he launched his photography business in New York doing mostly commercial work. David grew up in Ohio and is an attorney in Manhattan. In the late 1990s Niko and David first visited Bucks County and were inspired by the beauty and history of the area, especially its farms. That visit stirred a desire to find a place where they could retreat on weekends. “We rented a cottage on Cuttaloosa and were looking for about a year,” Niko remarks, “and the last few weeks of the rental we found this place.” But their interest in purchasing the property was hampered by their concern for its condition. “We came back several times and realized it was going to be a big project,” Niko adds. Despite the challenge, they were taken by the property, envisioning its potential. “It was beautiful and I loved the barn and the trees that were hundreds of years old—that is something you can’t reproduce.”
In love with the homestead’s architecture and its history, they bought the property in 2000, which included 33 acres and 16 structures. Their challenge was to preserve the homestead while redefining it to match their lifestyle. “We both enjoy the process of restoring and renovating,” Niko adds.
They researched the property’s history; finding out what is was to envision what it could be. The farm had a colorful past, from dairy farm to horse farm and an exotic animal farm. Niko explains that more recently exotic animals were raised here, including elephants and giraffes, to supply Christmas show productions in New York. It was during this period, in the 1970s, that this farm received its unusual name, Carousel Farm. The land has witnessed much activity and survived centuries of change.
The property actually dates back to land deeded in 1682 by William Penn to Nicholas Waln. According to Niko and David’s research, the land’s history continued ownership with Jedediah Allen, a New Jersey speculator who just held the land. In 1713 John Skelton, a local wheelwright, bought the land. For the next century, the Skelton family farmed the land. During this period a variety of buildings were constructed beginning with the barn in 1748. Niko states that when they took possession there were 16 structures, of which they left the five oldest buildings standing. The oldest was the barn built in 1748, then the carriage house, main house, corncrib and springhouse were all built in 1780.
For the first five years Niko and David used the farm as a weekend getaway. They began the restoration process one building at a time and spent three years restoring the five original structures. “We wanted to preserve the farm’s original footprint,” Niko explains. Focusing their attention on the challenge at hand, they surveyed the buildings to decide what was needed to preserve each building’s historic and architectural integrity. “Many of the buildings were not even safe to go in to,” Niko continues. They decided that in order to preserve the buildings, they had to gut each one, leaving just the façade to preserve the footprint. Working with Morie Breyer, their architectural designer and project manager, they painstakingly tore out the inside of each building and began rebuilding, bringing each structure back to its original state. “We decided that whatever buildings we kept had to have a function,” Niko reveals.
In order to renovate the main house, they decided to begin on the two-story carriage house, so they could live there while restoring the main house. “The carriage house’s interior had purple carpet and sheet rock walls covering up the original stone façade,” he describes. “It looked like a condo in Florida.” Small in square footage, but soaring in height, the renovation used the two-story feature to their advantage to create an illusion of more space. After gutting the structure and taking down the drop ceiling, they exposed the original twenty-foot hand-hewed wood ceiling beam that was holding up the second floor. Removing part of the second floor, they designed a loft bedroom and bath. In addition all the dry walls were removed to reveal the original stone walls, which they repointed. An open living room area and a kitchen space were created on the first floor, with the original stone walls as the backdrop. Along the entrance wall, French doors and an arched cathedral window were added, bringing in more light and redefining that wall.
An architecturally sophisticated element added to this space is a floating staircase reaching up to the second floor loft bedroom. After taking down the other staircase, they repositioned access to the second floor, by creating the stairs on the other side of the space. Niko explains how he conceptualized and built the staircase, which seems to float to the second floor balcony and loft. Using an old wood beam from the barn, he anchored the staircase. This beam is not attached on the top, creating a floating effect. Adding a steel railing and treads, he sculpted in the pine steps. The railing winds all the way up and around, curving to form a railing for the second floor balcony.
In the massive three-story barn, totaling 10,000 square feet, much of the raw space that was used during the farm years remains. Part of the barn space functions as stalls for their animals, including horses, cows, chickens, llamas, and donkeys. Another area houses all their farm equipment and supplies. With so much more space available, they chose to renovate areas of the massive building for specific functions. One section of the barn was designed to be Niko’s photography studio. In a corner of the oldest part of the barn they created a pool room. Surrounded by the original stone walls and beams, this 40-foot-high rustic, open space has been appointed with an antique hand-carved pool table. Niko found the pool table discarded, in pieces, in Philadelphia and restored it. Illuminating the space is a custom copper fixture, designed by Niko, and crafted by David John, a local metal artisan who made most of their light fixtures.
Another of the original structures they renovated was the springhouse, built in 1780. In this raw space, with the original stone walls, a wine cellar was built. This building was completely abandoned, falling apart and overgrown with weeds,” says Niko. With the natural spring water still trickling beneath, the temperature was kept cool, making a perfect setting for storing wine. “Handmade, custom wooden shelves were designed to store the wine. For an elegant touch, they hung an elaborate wrought iron chandelier.
Prior owners renovated the original 1780 farmhouse and again masked much of the original features. With the three-story main house restoration, they gutted the interior, leaving only the original stone walls and slate roof. “We just left the walls because there was nothing to save,” adds Niko. They put in all new electrical and plumbing systems. Niko explains that the floors were in bad condition. They bought old pumpkin pine floors to replace the flooring and restored the original fireplace and added a new mantel. A master bedroom suite was designed out of the two bedrooms that were on the top floor, and they renovated the three bedrooms on the second floor. The kitchen and office, part of a 1970s addition, were also completely renovated maintaining the footprint of the rooms.
With the restoration of the key structures complete they had time and space to enjoy their weekend getaway. “Eventually we wanted to do something different with the property,” Niko says. On a vacation, travelling through the countryside of Provence, they were inspired by the landscape. “The rolling hills are graced with old grape vines and lavender fields against a stunning backdrop of centuries-old fieldstone barns and farmhouses. Our farm, with its fieldstone farmhouse, 18th century stone barn and rolling fields seemed perfect to replicate the South of France,” Niko exclaims. This trip gave birth to Carousel Farm Lavender. Having had some experience with agriculture growing up in Cyprus, Niko decided to try to grow a small area of lavender on their property. After reading and researching on the Internet, Niko was ready to give it a try. “I planted five thousand plants just to see if they would survive,” Niko adds, “and I lost a lot of plants at the beginning of the process.”
“It was trial and error,” he explains, “trying different varieties and eventually propagating and developing some of my own.” He explains how he cross-pollinated several varieties to find plants that could withstand the year-round climate. In his trials he identified two English and two French varietals that could thrive in Bucks County soil and climate. Niko explains that he had to learn what works for this zone. “It is not the ideal climate to grow lavender,” he admits. “What began as a hobby just took off,” he adds. As he began developing a variety of plants, Niko built stone walls between the different varietals. He continued to have success and planted more plants. Today they have 15,000 organically grown lavender plants on eight acres, with each planted, pruned and harvested by hand. In addition, this successful harvest of lavender plants gave birth to a thriving business.
In 2005 they started the lavender fields with a couple thousand plants. For the first few years there was no store. “We sold our lavender plants, dried lavender and lavender sachets under a roadside stand, like a farmer’s market and year by year we developed a product line.” Today Carousel Farm Lavender operates on the property, using three of the restored buildings as the production and store sites. In a section of the massive barn they hang the lavender plants to dry. What was once the corncrib is now the distillery, where they make lavender oil from the dried plants. Many of their other products made from their lavender plants are manufactured in a small factory in New York.
With the success of the lavender plants, the next phase of the project began to unfold. What was an old pony farm was transformed into the Carousel Farm Lavender store. On the rear side of the store there was a 40-car garage to house the cars the prior owner collected. They tore down the entire structure and built vegetable and flower gardens and added a few tables and chairs for visitors to gather and enjoy the landscape and the gardens. In addition, they planted a wide variety of fruit trees around the property, including apples, fig, peach, pear, apricot and plum.
Even with a busy retail season in the store, in the spring and summer Niko and David still make time to enjoy the landscape. Meandering through the lavender fields, by horse or by foot, is a relaxing respite from the business. Both appreciate what they have built, with a pride and fulfillment that they have preserved the land and added another dimension of beauty and function to its landscape. v
Beth S. Buxbaum is a freelance writer from the Philadelphia area.