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Farms give way to new housing, retail development

Thursday, Dec. 1, 2005

Click here to enlarge this photo Allison Pasek⁄The Gazette Peggy Baden, 79, daughter of William and Emma Gallahan and sister to Alton Gallahan, stands by the wall of family photos in the Cherry Hill Farm market. Baden left Gallahan family farm at 17 but returned after retiring 15 years ago. She says that it will be hard to see the farm go, but ‘‘I retired once already; now it is my brother’s turn.”

Whether they came for the homemade doughnuts or ice cream, the hayrides, or to pick their own strawberries or apples, for many of them the visit to the farm had become a tradition. However, with no grandchildren to eventually take over, selling the farm was inevitable, said Alton Gallahan, part-owner of the farm. The farm closed on Nov. 23, ending the family’s ownership of 140 years. The market will remain open on the weekends until the spring.

The family plans to hold a large auction in March to sell most of their farm equipment.

In what has become a growing trend, Cherry Hill’s 120 acres have joined the list of wide-open spaces that are being rapidly transformed into bustling communities.

Along with Cherry Hill, Bevard Farms, and Upper Marlboro’s Smith Home Farms and B&R Farms, have all inked deals that are drastically changing the face of southern Prince George’s County.

The Smith Home Farms – an expansive open area of rolling hills and greenery – date back to the 1830s. The farm is bound by Melwood Road and Westphalia Road and includes 757 acres of wide-open countryside that developers are seeking to turn into 3,348 residential units, with an additional 30 acres for retail space.

Developers are also in the process of changing Bevard Farms, a former sand-and-gravel surface mine that ceased operations in the 1980s, into an eventual 1,874-unit subdivision.

Cherrywood Developers will be building houses on 90 acres of Cherry Hill’s land. The remaining 30 acres, on which the family had their homes, will be re-engineered and sold off to different buyers by this winter. Cherrywood Developers were not interested in buying up the remaining 30 acres because too many dwellings already existed on the land, said Gallahan.

‘‘There’s no doubt in my mind that we’re doing the right thing,” he said.

A time for change

Throughout the county, farms that once stood for generations are closing their doors and selling off land. And B&R Farms, a father-and-daughter-run equestrian farm, is no exception. The farm closed its doors at the end of October, after nearly 30 years of offering riding lessons and breeding horses, said Roxanne Dawson, part owner of the farm. For the owners of B&R Farms – located along Marlboro Pike – the decision to sell their land to developers was unavoidable.

Our farm was ‘‘a lifelong dream come true because I always wanted an outdoor arena,” said Dawson, referring to the arena where the horses were shown.

But ‘‘they were building all around us and we felt it wouldn’t be the same with all the development,” said Dawson, who said she would have liked to remain on her farm.

Dawson said she doesn’t like the wave of development sweeping through the county ‘‘because I prefer [the] country and farm land.”

While Dawson prefers the wide-open space of south county, Alton Gallahan said development is inevitable.

‘‘It’s a perfectly natural phenomenon,” Gallahan said.

Population growth leads to more jobs, which leads to more houses, he said.

The Gallahans have always intended to sell their land. A generation ago, Alton Gallahan’s grandfather sold more than 120 acres of the farm. And Gallahan said that his mother and father always had an eye out to sell the rest of it.

My family ‘‘would be very much in favor of what we’re doing,” Gallahan said. ‘‘I don’t think we’re betraying anyone.”

Over the course of generations, Cherry Hill, like many of the farms in the county, has expanded and changed. Originally a farm that grew tobacco and strawberries, peaches eventually replaced them as the farm’s main crop. The family also harvested apples, pumpkins and some Asian pears.

The Gallahans later opened up their produce market and bakery, and used ‘‘agro-tourism” methods such as hayrides and ‘‘pick-your-own-produce” orchards, and other recreational activities to remain profitable.

With the exception of the few years he served in the military, Alton Gallahan spent his entire life at Cherry Hill.

‘‘I was just born into it,” he said. ‘‘It’s just like being born with a certain hair color.”

When he first got out of school, farming was a lucrative trade because tobacco sales were doing well at the time.

Today, however, it’s difficult for small family farmers to earn a living, said Alton Gallahan, who drove a school bus for 18 years to help supplement his family’s income.

Unpredictable weather can also determine success or failure for a farm. In the late 1990s, spring frost destroyed the farm’s peach crops four years in a row.

‘‘You can try hard, manage hard and work hard, but it all boils down to luck,” Alton Gallahan said.

Tobacco farming was also the crop of choice for B&R Farms, Dawson said. But after government -led health awareness campaigns made the crop less profitable, the farm switched its focus to horse shows and riding lessons in the late 1980s.

‘‘I was happy [because] we put on a lot of horse shows and taught a lot of kids how to ride,” Dawson said.

Although the Gallahans had planned to sell their farm for years, closing it came as a surprise to many long-time visitors. While many of their customers were shocked and dismayed about the farm closing, others were downright angry, they said.

‘‘I don’t think that we’ve intended to be an institution. This is the way we made a living,” Alton Gallahan said.

The decision to sell, however, was not easy for everyone. All seven of Alton and his wife Pat Gallahan’s children were raised on the farm and almost all of them worked on it until it closed.

A new beginning

Dawson and her father purchased 20 acres of land in Cheltenham, but their new property pales in comparison to the 65 acres the two shared in Upper Marlboro, she said.

Since selling Cherry Hill, the Gallahans have moved to their new home on 60 acres of land in Calvert County.

Both Pat and Alton Gallahan said they are looking forward to having a little more time to travel, relax and figure out the next step. Alton Gallahan said he is especially looking forward to a new beginning.

‘‘I think we’re all going to be young again when we move,” Pat Gallahan said with a laugh.

Despite the hard work that went hand in hand with farm life, Pat Gallahan has some feelings of melancholy about the change. She is going to miss the hundreds of scarecrows that line the grounds during Halloween, and her memories of strawberry festivals and back-to-school, banana-split parties remain dear.

‘‘I don’t know how I’m going to feel the last time we drive down the road,” Pat Gallahan said. ‘‘It’s home.”

E-mail Erin Henk at ehenk@gazette.net and Lester J. Davis at ldavis@gazette.net.