Tea Lane Farm

2012

February 16, 2012
Chilmark meeting

Chilmark Voters Readily Back Lease Plan for Tea Lane Farm

Remy Tumin
Chilmark
Tea Lane Farm

Chilmark is now accepting proposals for Tea Lane Farm after town voters agreed, with sweeping support this week, to lease out the historic farm on a long-term basis.

Applications are due by next month; the Tea Lane Farm committee is still finishing a timetable and rubric for the project. The farm committee will review proposals and conduct interviews with applicants and then make recommendations to a joint committee of the selectmen and land bank advisory board, which will make a final decision.

February 13, 2012
Tea Lane Farm

News Update: Monday, Feb. 13 - Voters Approve New Lease on Life for Tea Lane Farm

Tea Lane Farm

With sweeping support Chilmark voters approved the long-term leasing of the historic Tea Lane Farm house at a special town meeting Monday night.

The vote was 62 to 5.

This was the fourth time selectmen have come before voters with a plan to return the property to a working farm. Selectmen said offering a 75-year lease on the property as-is was the best option so far.

February 9, 2012

Chilmark Special Town Meeting Tackles Future of Tea Lane Farm

Remy Tumin
Chilmark special town meeting
Tea Lane Farm

The fate of the historic Tea Lane Farm will come before Chilmark voters for a fourth time at a special town meeting on Monday. Voters are being asked to decide whether the town should enter into a long-term lease with a tenant farmer.

The meeting begins at 7:30 p.m. at the Chilmark Community Center. Moderator Everett Poole will preside over the special session.

January 5, 2012
Tea Lane

Tea Lane Looking for Prince Farming

Remy Tumin
Tea Lane Farm

The original posts and beams from the 1755 house sag with history. Bittersweet clings to the rafters of the 1850 barn. Milking stalls still stand from the 1950s, waiting for the cows to come home.

Tea Lane Farm has been many things in its more than 250-year history — a longtime dairy farm, once a vegetable farm and even host to a Revolutionary War contraband tea operation.

Now, with any luck the old farm off Middle Road in Chilmark will soon get another lease on life with a new tenant farmer.

2011

December 8, 2011

Plan for Tea Lane Farm Shifts Toward Long-Term Lease, As-Is

Remy Tumin
Tea Lane Farm

The future of Tea Lane Farm took a different course this week as Chilmark selectmen reviewed preliminary plans to lease the property as a farm as-is instead of spending money to restore it.

Under the new proposal, the town would lease the historic farmhouse for up to 99 years, using a resident homesite model similar to the Middle Line Road affordable housing project. The farmer tenant would be responsible for a long list of improvements that would be spelled out in the lease.

October 20, 2011

Counsel Urges Town To Consider Leasing Tea Lane Farmhouse

Remy Tumin
Tea Lane Farm

By REMY TUMIN

Chilmark selectmen are now considering a new plan for leasing out the town-owned house at Tea Lane Farm.

On Tuesday town counsel Ronald H. Rappaport outlined three options for the town — sell the property, issue a short-term or a long-term lease.

Selectmen are considering the next steps after voters rejected a third plan to restore and renovate the 18th century farmhouse for $550,000 at a special town meeting last month.

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