First off, I am a city guy from New Jersey. I have never lived on a farm, never stayed on a farm for more than 3 days, never rode a horse and lastly I am constantly glued to a device even though I have zero reason to be glued to a device, I mean I sold a company, I should be free right?????
Recently, I caught my 3-year-old daughter scrolling through my phone and it scared the shit out of me. I might not be the smartest crayon in the jar but I know that starting her off at 3 with a cell phone addiction problem is no good. I kinda wish she had an addiction to fruit by the loop, gushers, and french fries like her dada but no devices.
So Started The Journey of Finding Land to Farm
I started thinking—where in California could we go that really felt like a farm? Not a 30-minute petting zoo, or a LA Zoo (the quote on quote animal jail) or a pumpkin patch, but a real experience. A place to run around barefoot, get muddy, be around animals, eat food from the ground, and maybe parade down a water slide and just do stuff that we can connect with the younger less sophisticated version of yourself
The answer? Nowhere
And that planted the seed:
What would it look like to build that place ourselves?
The Vision
I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for, but I had a blurry vision:
A piece of land that felt alive. Maybe a water slide!
Somewhere people could go to disconnect and recharge.
A place my daughters could grow up close to animals, our food supply, and fresh air.
And maybe, just maybe, a business that supports itself without me pissing away lots of capital in holding costs.
After narrowing in on Tennessee (affordable land, natural beauty, and culture that values simplicity and 0 TAXES!), I flew out solo and met up with a local real estate agent to tour a few options.
I didn’t expect to come home with a plan.
I did come home with a very specific curiosity... about horses.
Property #1: A Not-So-Wild Hunting Lodge
The first stop was 300 acres in Hickman County. Beautiful from above—streams, trees, rolling hills. But once we walked the land, it was clear: this wasn’t it.
It was way too remote.
Most of the land wasn’t usable.
The soil couldn’t support growing anything except brown Tennessee mud.
And the main business model was basically: come out, rent the place, get married and shoot stuff. This wasn’t very scalable
Plus they’re asking $8.3 million for they’re little oasis nestled deep in god’s country.
Some of the questions we asked
What is they’re source of water? They have they’re well water
How many out of the 300 acres were actually buildable ( 10-15%) everything else deep wooded
How far from the nearest airport? There was a helicopter landing strip, but has never been landed on before, so in essence the nearest airport is Nashville.
What is the cost of insurance and taxes aka carry cost? Very low under $10,000 a year.
Why was the property valued at $8.3 million? The listing agent had no idea how to answer this, in essence her response was that the owner woke one day and saw a vision that $8.3 million was the right amount to ask for.
Outcome: Decided to let this one go and move on to this next one, sadly my daughters won’t ever learn how to shoot wild turkeys on this property.
Lesson learned: you don’t learn real estate from looking at beautiful pictures from an ambitious listing agency. You’ve gotta walk the land and see how it feels. Sometimes you discover what you’re not looking for—and that’s progress
Property #2: The Horse Farm I Didn’t See Coming
Then we toured a horse farm in Franklin—one of the most beautiful areas right outside of Nashville Tennessee. On paper, it looked underwhelming and overpriced. In person, it felt… kind of magical but still overpriced.The land by itself though is rare, 75 acres in Franklin is incredible.
They were modern stalls. lush pastures. clean air. And a peace I hadn’t felt in a while. I mean the smell of horse shit really seemed to inspire greatness in me.
The thing I didn’t understand regarding the listing, why is the property being listed by itself ? Wouldn’t they get a higher valuation if they listed both the horse boarding business and the property together?? I don’t think it’s possible to keep the horse business and sell the property?? Really confusing, maybe it was a mistake potentially.
Apparently, horse farms can be more than just “lifestyle” properties. Some actually make money (not sure this one does). Here’s how they charge
Board horses for local owners (charge rent, feed, care fees). They charge $1,350-1900 per horse boarding. We don’t know the margin or ebitda on this.
Host events like retreats or small weddings or horse related events like rodeos.
Horse Adoption, a lot of people want to buy horses and ponies, it seems they offer a service where they recruit horses and ponies for financially able animal owners. No idea.
It’s not a tech startup. But it also could potentially cover its own cost.
The key here is the location is incredible, it's right in Franklin Tennessee and about 3 miles from Southall.
My motivation is there, I never grew up with a pony, we couldn’t fit a pony into our 2 bedroom jersey apt, just wasn’t a logical investment for a single mom working 3 jobs and a son who couldn’t keep himself out of Juvy but it’d be kind of cool for my daughters to have ponies and horses and learn how to be responsible adults by cleaning up large horse turds.
Actually maybe that’s the business, charging families to allow their kids to learn how to be responsible citizens by picking up horse manure???
Update Where We’re At
For the last 2 weeks, I have been asking and pleading for financials specifically P and L’s on the property. I just want to understand if this horse farm is a non-profit or an actual business. The owner is a huge horse lady (not huge in size) but huge in passion for horses and it seems she is being forced into selling this magnificent property.
The Dream Deal
If we do see a profitable P and L, then it all comes down to putting together an offer that she might accept.
My idea for structuring the deal is if I convince her to potentially get on-board with partnering up, maybe we can set up a new LLC to buy both the farm and business. Furthermore, I could sell her a piece of the LLC and then she could help run the profitable horse farm. This is all hypothetical but in my creative mind and a win win structure.
I know her passion lies in saving the horse farm from being turned into a beautiful Franklin Tennessee housing project.
Next, I could build luxury bougie houses on the property so that both my wife, wealthy hedge fund managers, Tik tok influencers, and all other non-bracketed cool people can come down and stay on the farm. ( my wife is cool)
All this is contingent on actually seeing a profit and loss statement and diligence’ing the financials.
Well see if this dream is actually a reality, I’ll report back in part 2.
📩 Reply to this email or shoot me a message. I’m all ears, hooves, and heart right now.
