Home-making on the Farm

In belated honor of  J.D. Salinger,  a deceptively simple observation on homes, by Joyce Maynard:
“A good home must be made, not bought.”
Taken a bit out of context, this assertion is, when you think about it, pretty radical.  We buy homes, like we buy cars and home theater systems, though usually with a bigger loan, and [...]

Buy the S&P 500 (acres)!

For those relatively few of you who don’t subscribe to Pork Magazine, (the leading periodical of porcine agribusiness), I pass along an interesting article.  It covers a study from Iowa State that compared Iowa farm acreage, as an investment, to the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index.
The study’s authors conclude that the wisdom of putting [...]

Baldwin Center is Open for Business

The Baldwin Center for Preservation Development is open for business 8:30 am to 5:00 pm, Monday through Friday, and by appointment on the weekends.  You are invited to stop by to see and learn about all the interesting things happening at Bundoran Farm. 
Our new contact information is:
Bundoran Farm
5005 Edge Valley Road
North Garden, VA  22959
434-295-3700
info@bundoranfarm.com
Since its [...]

Build it (Farm it) and They Will Come

Below is the unabbreviated copy of the article written by Edward H. Carter that appeared in Piedmont Virginian magazine.
Where do we go with this?  Posited the fleece clad Bob Baldwin as he stood next to a blank whiteboard facing the fifty or so participants in the inaugural conference of the Baldwin Center for Preservation Development.  [...]

Residential Development and the Working Landscape

We received a nice mention of our inaugural symposium in the new issue of The Piedmont Virginian, a beautiful publication focusing on landscape and culture of Virginia. Apologies for the scan: there’s no online version:  
BCPD-Symposium-PVMag-Jan-2010

Local Food Friend-of-Bundoran Gryffon’s Aerie

The Bundoran Farm team just visited with a friend, Collins Huff, of Gryffon’s Aerie.  Collins and his wife Ramona run one of the most remarkable grass-fed beef operations in the country, and it happens to be here in Albemarle County.  As if on cue, Collins’ visit to the Baldwin Center was presaged by a feature on [...]

Cheese News Update!

In defiance of economic conditions, my wife and I recently had the opportunity to dine with some friends at Jean-Georges in New York.  The grandparents foolishly offered to host the kids overnight, and before they finished the sentence, Hillary and I were in the New York suburbs.  If you haven’t heard of JG, it’s the flagship of JG Vongerichten, quite [...]

Cheese News

I just got a chance to have lunch with Friend-of-Bundoran Andrew Morley.  Andrew is an interesting fellow who has decided to take an extended break from the world of hedge funds (whatever those are) and focus on something really exciting: artisanal cheese.
During his journey through the world of artisanal cheeses, Andrew has worked and studied [...]

Dirt Tastings on the Cul-de-Sac

My favorite moment in publishing is the end-of-year retrospective.  The New York Times Magazine is set to publish its Year in Ideas, which this year includes Virginia’s recent action to promote connectivity in new subdivisions.  As is often the case, a very well-intentioned idea that generally promotes good planning practice is, in the context of [...]

Budgets and Farmland

Here at the Baldwin Center, we subscribe to several web news feeds that track studies, stories and statistics on farmland and development pressure.  The remarkable similarity of many of these stories (“Planning Commission Supports Additional Farmland Protection Measures”) illustrates how universal are the issues we’ve chosen to address with this foundation.
Recently, however, as so many fast-growing [...]