Help Us Save Bent Apple Farm!

Ben & Loana here from Bent Apple Farm!! If you follow us on Instagram or Facebook you know all about our personal saga. It has been a wild ride as we try to navigate a VERY crazy legal situation and an attempt to fully derail our family. We believe this has all been brought upon us unfairly, as it all started with the complaint of one family that wanted the beautiful property that we ended up with! Since having it was not an option, they have joined forces with other neighbors to target us and our operation with the intention to shut us down. This has led them to file a complaint with Act 250, knowing little about our operation, our family, and our story.

I (Ben) have been hard at work for over 20 years converting animal structures into cute rustic cabins. This has been a labor of love to keep up my mother's horse farm after her passing! When our barn burned down in 2012, we rebuilt it as a beautiful antique replica, but this time for people instead of horses! This felt more within my wheelhouse than being a farmer, as I have been a designer for many years!! These cool little cabins are what have allowed us to hold onto this heavenly place my mom created back in 1993 with my stepfather. This Farm is not only our home...It's our livelihood.

Just recently we decided to expand our farm and built 4 new structures, for which we have all our permits, inspections, and have paid our dues to make sure we are in compliance with our town zoning. We actually have not added to the overall footprint of our farm since 94! We took out a giant loan to build the structures in two new fields we purchased from friends. But since some new folks have moved onto the road, they have been on a mission to disrupt what was started long before their arrival. Their intent has been to delay our progress, harass our workers, and just totally run us dry. To a large degree it's working…But one thing this family is known for, is our resilience: we might run out of funds, but we won’t run out of determination. This family isn’t quitting and they won’t run us off our own beautiful road.

Currently, we have been forced to shut down our build for a second time this year, which pushes us into the colder building months. A large portion of our materials have been ruined, and we have lost some key players in our crew. But what has REALLY been ruined is the kind nature of our road! In the 31 years of my family living here, we have never had a single issue with any neighbor about our farm, our guests or our operation. We are in the middle of appealing the last Act 250 jurisdiction decision, as we believe we are not even near the number of structures to trigger it. Our pre-existing structures should have been grandfathered as they were built in 1993 and 1994 when my parents first purchased the property.

We are a great family that has nothing but a dream to keep up their farm and return it to its full glory... animals, apples and all! This is going to be a long journey, but we hope you can hang in there with us! Your donation will help us recover the cost of lost materials, lost time, and lost wages, as well as paying expensive lawyers, loan payments, and consultant fees. We are working so hard to push through this emotionally and financially draining time. We know if we can finish our project, we will be right back on track. We are very grateful for your support to help us fight this battle!

To all of our followers, we created this GoFundMe because you have asked us how you could be of help. We love you for that! A donation would be incredible during this time! To all the people chipping in... We hope to have the barn completed soon, and if we get the go ahead we would to host you with a family and friend discount!

To the ones that have been helping us since the beginning and our awesome crew, thank you! Thank you so much for the moral support too!!! You guys have all gotten us this far. We just need to make one more big push and hang in there!

Thank you and LOVE you ALL,

Ben+Loana