fb-pixelAt a small Brewster farm, a chance to stay where your food is grown - The Boston Globe Skip to main content

At a small Brewster farm, a chance to stay where your food is grown

Guests to Halycon Farm can stay in one, or both, of two private rooms.

BREWSTER — The Cape is so desirable that it can be hard to find an affordable place to stay for a few days, and many rental properties require a weeklong commitment. Lucas Dinwiddie at Halcyon Farm in Brewster offers something different: A farm stay, minus the actual grueling work of farming.

“We’re selling the beauty,” Dinwiddie says.

Dinwiddie, born and raised in nearby Orleans, runs the organic vegetable farm with hospitality and genuine local flavor. For $175 per night, guests can rent, via Airbnb, one or both of the two private rooms (which each sleep two people) in Dinwiddie’s renovated 1840s farmhouse that overlooks his meticulously cared-for rows of vegetables.

Advertisement



The house is tended to just as meticulously.

Depending on the time of year, guests may be greeted at the farmhouse by a bowl of fresh-picked strawberries or cherry tomatoes and radishes, set on the worn wooden kitchen table just through the front door.

The house itself is unexpectedly cool, even on the hottest days, and filled with natural light. It is comfortable and elegant at once, with high-end but welcoming decor. You can sense the love (along with Dinwiddie’s blood, sweat, and tears — he did all the extensive remodeling and furnishing himself, and he is planning to add a greenhouse off the kitchen and continue improving the other spaces) in the walls.

“It’s great when people get it,” Dinwiddie says of his vision for the house and having people stay on the farm.

You can tell how passionate he is about what he is building by talking to him. He knows how hard people work for their vacations. The care he puts into the house and the farm is evident. The rooms, which each have a private bathroom, are loaded with custom carpentry, fastidious design, and local small batch soaps and salves.

Advertisement



Staying at Halcyon isn’t just about having a place to sleep, it’s about having an experience, he says. You get all the beauty of a farm “and never have to lift a finger? I mean, that’s my dream.”

Dinwiddie confesses he would love to be less of a slave to the soil, preferring to focus on marketing his produce and renting the rooms in the farmhouse, as well as enhancing the experience for guests. He hopes to get bikes for people who stay so they can take advantage of the bike path that runs just behind the property. He also just opened the Dooryard, a small shop at the farm where people can buy produce and the salves and soaps farmhouse guests use.

He has aspirations to build a barn for weddings and events and would like to host dinners. But he also talks about needing the balance that comes with community nights, where folks can have access to the food he grows at a more affordable price. He is full of ideas to draw people closer to the farm. Dinwiddie has a fervent interest in encouraging people to interact with their food system. Opening his home to people is part of that, but it is also part of trying to make his operation financially sustainable.

“We need to make small-scale farming a viable, resilient, permanent fixture, where we have foundations set up and we have grants for labor. Agriculture is conservation,” Dinwiddie says.

Advertisement




Bethany Graber can be reached at bethany.graber@gmail.com.