Thirty-five years of this farm. And a pipeline that could end it.

Around 1991, Heather's parents bought a piece of ground on Williamsport Pike in Maury County and started a horse farm. They ran it for twenty-five years. Heather and her sister grew up on it. When they were ready to step back, we took it over, and we've been running it for the ten years since.

Thirty-five years. Same family, same fields, same barns. Innisfree Farm.

Today it's home to around 40+ horses, and it's a boarding, training, breeding, and lesson operation. Heather is the trainer — all of it, every horse, every rider. She also served as Equine Director at Saddle Up, the therapeutic riding program for children with disabilities.

We've trained horses for people with famous names. We've also put kids on horses whose families couldn't have paid for a single lesson, and never mentioned it to anyone. Rich, poor, black, white — a horse doesn't care, and neither do we. That's been the operating principle of this place for thirty-five years.

We've watched families who couldn't get through a dinner together spend two hours on a trail ride and come back talking. We've watched kids who wouldn't look an adult in the eye walk up and put a hand on a horse's neck. We've watched people come out here after a diagnosis, after a divorce, after a funeral, because the barn is the only place quiet enough to think.

What we're facing

In July 2023, we received an email from Columbia Power and Water Systems about a 36-inch water transmission main they wanted to run across our farm.

The next month, our house burned down.

We took the insurance money and put it back into the farm. We could have rebuilt and stopped there. Instead, we reinvested in the operation, because we believed this place served more than just our family. We've been living above the garage ever since.

By September 2024 we had to hire lawyers. In April 2025, CPWS made a formal offer for a permanent easement across our land — a tiny amount that came nowhere near covering what this will cost us. Their own appraiser concluded that the damage to the rest of our farm was zero.

Last month they filed to take it. We are Case No. 18532 in Maury County Circuit Court.

Here is what "zero damage" looks like on the ground. A trench across our highway frontage. Every tree along that corridor cut down — permanently. Those trees are the shade our horses stand under in a Middle Tennessee August, and they're what separates our pastures from the highway. Once they're gone, they're gone. Not for a season. For the rest of our lives here.

Their appraisal doesn't mention the trees. Not once. Not in the land value, not in the improvements, not in the damages.

And they may cut them before we ever get in front of a judge.

Three years of not knowing

Since that first email, every decision about this farm has had a question mark on it that we didn't put there.

Do we take on more horses, not knowing if we'll have the pasture? Do we commit to families who want to board here? Do we keep building? We have spent three years unable to answer basic questions about our own business, waiting on a decision that was never ours to make.

Where we are now

We're already five figures into legal costs, and the case has barely started. Our attorney bills hourly. We need an independent appraisal — the one thing nobody has done yet, because every number in this case so far came from the utility's own appraiser. That alone is another five-figure expense.

This is expected to take a year or more.

We are not trying to stop Columbia's water project. We know this county needs water. We are asking to be treated fairly by a public utility that looked at a thirty-five-year family farm and valued the damage to it at nothing. We're asking to not have to carry additional burdens that other citizens do not share in. We're asking for a fair and just settlement.

What your donation does

If we're fortunate enough to win, we will be able to continue to operate or farm to bring joy, love, and excitement to the lives of everyone that we come in contact with.

What we're asking

Give if you can. If you can't give money, that's totally awesome, but if you would share this, someone else might be able to :)

Thirty-five years. Three generations living here. One family. A lot of people who found something here they needed.

We're not ready to let it go, and we shouldn't be required to do so.

— Adam and Heather Silverman

Innisfree Farm, Williamsport, Tennessee