Dower Farm

Closed for the 2020 Season

Our History:

The Dower Farm has been in our family for over 100 years. At the turn of the last century, Clinton Ledyard Blair (our great grandfather) chose this valley as the setting for his "Gilded Age" summer residence Blairsden. The house and grounds were designed by the firm Carrere and Hastings (well known as the architects of the New York Public Library) in collaboration with James Greenleaf (landscape architect for, among other things, the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC). According to Greenleaf's design, the Dower Farm lies within a bow of the mile long driveway leading from the Peapack Main Street up the hill to Blairsden. The entrance to this driveway, complete with follies and ruined water garden, can be seen by looking through the great gateway with its fountains and brick walls bordering Main Street.

It was in the late 1960's that our father, James J. Casey, planted his first Christmas trees on a hill overlooking the main farmhouse. For some time he had been searching for a family-oriented farming project with which to occupy his time in the country away from his office in New York City. A tree lover, he relished tending and watching his sturdy Norway Spruce (the only variety not decimated by the local deer) flourish in what soon became a major plantation. By the mid 1980's select specimens lovingly cared for by foreman Alfred Lukas were winning prizes in Christmas tree competitions at local shows and the State Agricultural Fair. And the tree farm was open for customers to choose and cut. Over subsequent years families and friends from nearby and as far away as New York City and Long Island came to walk the fields, find a tree, and enjoy the long winter views over the Peapack Hills.

Time passed, and with Mr. Casey's decline and death in 2001 the operation dwindled. There came a turning point: would the tree farm continue for the next generation? Mr. Casey's daughter Anne, and her husband and children in combination with the Jablonski family of Peapack took up the challenge. Fields were re-organized, trees again planted, and this year we are finally entirely operational! 

As Christmas nears, we all look forward to greeting you at the white farm gates so that you may once again "Choose and Cut Your Christmas Tree in Peapack".