NYC to Sebastopol: Former fashion designer styles new, delicious life on Sebastopol farm
One does not look at Viviane Bauquet Farre and think ‘homesteader,’ but that’s exactly what this former New York City fashion designer has become.
Petite, with a chic bob hairstyle and dressed in a knit v-neck sweater and jeans, Farre exudes a simple elegance, much like the perfectly-put-together farm she has toiled over for the past five years.
Her dream to grow food year-round led her from the bustling streets of Manhattan to the end of a bumpy, country lane in Sebastopol and a long-abandoned property, complete with a collapsed well.
It was hardly a homesteader’s paradise, but Farre has turned the weed-covered property into what feels like a Garden of Eden that feeds her, her husband and a small host of others through her bespoke CSA subscription.
A CSA — community-supported agriculture or cropsharing — is a system in which a consumer subscribes to the harvest of a certain farm or group of farms.
“The farm has been a fantastic teacher. It’s changed how I approach recipes, and how I live my life,” said Farre as she walked around her garden, which, at a quarter of an acre, takes up a fraction of the 8.5-acre parcel of land she calls Sky Farm.
The property is pristine and laid out carefully with cut flower and herb gardens, a small orchard with 80 fruit trees, plus several varieties of berries — including hard-to-find ollalieberries and honeyberries that look like oblong blueberries — to ensure she has fruit all year round.
Rows of leafy greens and vegetable crops are numbered and charted so she knows exactly what she will grow where, next. A greenhouse in the middle anchors it all.
On this particular spring morning, rose-like heads of radicchio, beds of leeks and spring onions, and fat stalks of asparagus, poking from the soil, were all ready to be harvested.
The asparagus had been an hors d’oeuvres along with artichokes for dinner the night before.
“When you see how much work and effort and care goes into that, you eat more mindfully. And I feel like when you start doing that, you start living your life more mindfully. It changes you over time,” Farre said, with a subtle French accent.
She does all the farming herself, turning the soil by hand. She makes her own compost, and everything is organic. She keeps pests at bay with netting to cover tender plants and flowers that attract beneficial insects. Solar energy powers her home and farm.
It’s all part of the circular economy she set out to create. She has no plans to expand her CSA, which she began in 2021 and feeds 14 families beside her own.
“The CSA is not there to make money, but is there to cover my bills,” she said. “It is creating a life that’s sustainable and that sustains us.”
No compromises
Although she spent more than 20 years in the fashion business, including running her own successful knitwear line (coincidentally, or maybe serendipitously, called Hothouse), all she really wanted to do was exactly what she’s doing now.
“One of the wonderful things about getting older is that I realize I don’t have to compromise. I can create the life that I want,” said Farre, who is 60.
Growing up in New Caledonia, a French Island in the South Pacific, a career in food was unfathomable, but she’s always loved cooking.
“When I was a child, the happiest moments of my childhood were running to my grandmother after school (and) seeing what she’s cooking and insisting on helping,” said Farre.
As a teen, she bought copies of French Elle magazine to make the recipes.
After college at Pepperdine University, she began gardening, even in the smallest of garden beds and plots, but the cold winters in the Northeastern U.S. meant she couldn’t do what she loved most for months at a time.
“I used to cry for a week when I had to close my garden,” she said. “It literally was like somebody was tearing my heart out for me to put it on pause until May, it was agony for me.”
As she transitioned from fashion (an industry she describes as cutthroat) to food, she launched a website, Food & Style where she shares recipes, created a YouTube channel for cooking videos, and wrote a cookbook with a focus on greens.
A homemade life
Her refrigerator and pantry are as organized and impressive as her garden.
The freezer is packed neatly with jars of pestos, pureed peppers, and homemade soups. The pantry contains jams, liqueurs and dried fruits, all made from items grown on her farm.
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