HN Haus Podcast

We Started A New Venture: This Hudson Farm

• Hannah Nieves • Episode 75

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We’re so excited to announce that we’re expanding into a 160-acre farm in the Hudson Valley! In this episode, we break down the ‘why’ behind this decision, the process of investing in a working farm, and how this new property ties into the larger mission and vision of our brand. This latest venture is the embodiment of what it means to put lifestyle at the forefront and redefine success on your own terms. Join us as we reflect and celebrate this new chapter. 


IN THIS EPISODE, WE TALK ABOUT:

(1:00) Why we decided to sell our brand new home and move to a farm 

(3:39) Staying rooted in what makes you happy 

(5:03) How we plan to use the farm to give back to our local community and HN Haus members

(8:34) A thought exercise to help you reimagine your dream lifestyle 

(10:58) Why it’s so important to avoid getting caught up in the flashiness of entrepreneurship

(12:56) Surrounding yourself with evidence that your wildest dreams are possible 


RESOURCES

- Follow This Hudson Farm: @thishudsonfarm 

- Learn more about HN Haus services: hnhaus.com 


CONNECT WITH HANNAH:

Follow the Founder: @hannahmnieves 

Follow HN Haus: @hnhaus 

Join our Email Community for monthly resources, tips and exclusive content!

Speaker 0:

Hello everyone, it's Hannah Nieves of the H&H House podcast and I'm excited because I'm tuning in from this Hudson Farm which, if you haven't been following us on social media, we shared our latest venture and our latest brand, which is 160-acre farm in the Hudson Valley, and I have so much to say about this place and this journey. I threw so many people off because this investment, this next phase, was something that's been in the works for the last six months and I have kept a very tight lip, but today we're going to be talking a lot about how this integrates with the brands themselves, the process of doing this, why we're doing this, the vision and how this integrates with your business and your life. So, taking it way back, people asked me why did you sell your brand new home that you just built to move to a farm? And I grew up on a hobby farm as a kid and I talked about this in earlier episodes I had a pretty rough upbringing as a child. I was adopted when I was 18 by my stepdad. For me, the home was always a place where I wanted to create safety and integration and just really create a sacred place, and for us, the farm is physically, but also emotionally, a place where we're reimagining the way that we live and work. And if you know our companies, you know that all of our brands are centered around this core theme of redefining the way that we live and work, because what works for someone else might not work for you.

Speaker 0:

And when we started the journey of almost seven years ago, my husband and I we lived in a 400 square foot condo in the Hudson Valley, closer to the city, and we just started moving and renovating properties. So we moved to another property, we renovated that property, we sold that, we built our last house, which was from the ground up, and sold that to move to this farm. So, number one, we leveraged real estate during this process. But two, what we really realized was that we thought we achieved, you know, the version of the American dream by building this house. Right, it was beautiful. It's 4500 square feet, has beautiful glass door. I mean the beautiful kitchen. I still get people who are saying, how could you leave that kitchen? But we thought we did it all until we didn't.

Speaker 0:

And what was really interesting was that, you know, when we got in there. Of course we're so excited, we love the house, but I remember looking at my husband saying I was like this isn't it. I was like this isn't. This isn't the last stop for us. And we started laughing because we just, you know, built this house for the last year and now we're talking about moving and we realized about six months in that we were looking for a lifestyle versus the house itself, and it started this journey of looking at different farm properties. So we just thought we were just going to get a farm, potentially have, you know, some type of monetization to it, and call it a day, until we landed on this specific property, which we're so excited about because we're also going to be opening up for people to come stay here as well. But it's beautiful, wide open, 160 acres in the Hudson Valley, and it's in one of my favorite places as well, and we knew that this was it. So long story short, fast forward to now. We're closing and you know we're sharing this with our community.

Speaker 0:

You know this farm is so much more than just, you know, a farm in the Hudson Valley, and for us it's a way that we can show people that a you get to redefine what success means for you. You get to redefine the way that you live your life. We realized that it wasn't the house that made us happy, it was the lifestyle, the intentionality around it. We wanted slow living, we wanted intentional living and this was really important for us. And I have to tell you, from the first few weeks of living here, I've also noticed a my nervous system just decreased. My nervous systems are to recalibrate into the way it's actually supposed to be, because we're so stimulated by so many things, whether it's in urban environments or it's just on the go all the time. Sometimes it's hard to actually stop and pause and really reflect and say why am I doing what I'm doing? So the farm is a place where we're showing people that you can reimagine the way that you live and work. You can reimagine and restart the way that you live and work too, which is a big one. We still get a lot of people who are asking us how could you sell your last home to move to a farm? We could never picture that, for you and for us. This is what makes us so happy.

Speaker 0:

So in the last piece is we wanted a place where we could also give back to the community and being on this farm now obviously we aren't farmers ourselves. We have the opportunity to support two farmers that are on here one being women owned, women owned business and support their businesses with the brand that we have. And to me, it just opens up so many doors to so many different ways that we can connect with our community, whether it's hosting charitable dinners, founders dinners, we can support local families when it comes to food pantries and things like that. There's just so much that we can do here and that's what I'm really excited about, because, a we have a place where people can stay. B we can support our community through this farm, and it not just impacts me, but it impacts future generations. So for us, this farm is so much more than just a working farm. This farm is really the epitome of that integration that we talk about, right, that integration that we teach our clients about.

Speaker 0:

And if you're listening to this and thinking there's no way in hell I'd move to a farm, that's okay. I have a client of mine who her dream and her vision is to have the Upper West Side apartment with her kids in the city, and she feels invigorated by being in New York City. And this goes for whether you want to be a nomadic traveler, you want to move to a farm, you want to move to a big city, but your lifestyle is so important to the work that you're doing and it needs to also be at the forefront, because I see so many business owners who are building these businesses and they're hustling which, yes, we all have to hustle in some capacity but who are building these businesses but they forget about the lifestyle. They forget about what they're actually doing and why they actually do it and whether for you, if that's living in a bustling city like New York City, if it's being able to travel one week a month or travel nomadically, we have clients who travel nomadically to different countries and that is their lifestyle. We also have clients who are looking to buy farm properties, buy vineyards, buy larger scale properties. You have to define what that is for you, and our goal with this Hudson Farm is that we're able to help you recalibrate yourself when you come here, so that you can find that within yourself. So I'm really excited.

Speaker 0:

We're gonna have a place where people can stay here overnight. We're gonna be hosting retreats, we're gonna be hosting curated dinners and, if you're a client of ours as well, our retreats are also gonna be here, so you'll get to experience the farm as well, and I just encourage all of you, if you're thinking about this and listening to this, that there's nothing that's unattainable. And I have to tell you, when I first shared about the farm with clients and announced it, I didn't expect this. I had so many people that reached out to me that were like thank you for showing us what's possible, thank you for showing us how expansive your lifestyle can be and I'm like wait, expansive, I just moved to a farm.

Speaker 0:

But it's more so thinking outside the box of what society tells you that you need to have. Thinking outside the box when it comes to the lifestyle that you're actually building for your family, whether it is going to 160 acre farm or it's moving to your apartment in York City with your family or wherever it is, but it's redefining the way that you are actually using your business to integrate to your life, and I think that's the biggest thing. So, when you're thinking about reimagining your lifestyle, I think there's a few things that you wanna keep in mind. Number one what's of importance to you? And I think that's one thing that my husband and I got really clear on, which was what's important to us as a family, as a growing family, what's important to us? What's the end goal? And when I say end goal, I'm not talking about the next, like three, five years. I'm talking longer than that. I'm talking about 10, 20 years. If you close your eyes, what are you doing in the day to day? What is that for you? And this could be the lifestyle, this could be the flexibility that you have. So, getting clear on the vision, getting clear of what matters to you, and then working on a plan to actually get there.

Speaker 0:

When we first started this business, I'm a very big visualization person, so I can close my eyes and visually see things years down the line. And I remember I used to have dreams of this place before we actually even found this property, and I used to dream about the circular driveway and the entrance with the oak trees that are hanging over and the pebble stones that go down the road. And I kid you not, this farm has all of that. And I remember when we were first starting this process, I didn't know the timeline. I just knew that that was gonna happen, whether it's in a year from now or five years from now. But I remember I declared that to my team. I said I wanna buy a farm, I declared to my husband. I said we're gonna do this. And it's so beautiful when you actually have that intention and you have that visualization and then, more importantly, you have the plan to get there.

Speaker 0:

And I talk about this in a lot of episodes, but, as entrepreneurs, right Like your business is the vehicle to other opportunities. It's the vehicle to open up doors to other opportunities and for a lot of people, they preach how people who are really wealthy have seven streams of income, but what most people don't talk about is usually the first one is their business, and that's the kickoff point and we have always used our businesses as springboards to the next. So when we launched this Hudson Studio, that was because that came from, you know, soul Investment that we had in our original businesses. That opened that one and then from there then it went into this right. So each business played a role in supporting the next venture that started.

Speaker 0:

And it's something that you can do. If I can do it, anyone can do this, and it just takes a little bit of strategy, intention and also living really humbly. I think that's another one too. I see a lot of founders, and I talked about this on so many episodes already. But so many founders get so tripped up with the flashiness of entrepreneurship where they start to make more money and then they start to blow more money. They start to blow their money on things that don't bring them value, whether it's investing in a car or investing in things that are not bringing you value in the long run. So I've always been really strategic with how I move the money around too. That's another thing we can talk about on a later episode.

Speaker 0:

But living very humbly, I talked about for the first few years in business. When I first hit seven figures in business, I was driving my husband's Honda CRZ. If you've ever looked at what the Honda CRZ looks like, it is a death trap. So it was a beater car that we had. I was driving that around in my old school Target sweatpants because that's what we rocked when we were building and scaling. And I did that for the first few years of business before I upgraded anything, because I wanted to make sure that we were amplifying everything we're doing and reinvesting in the business.

Speaker 0:

Now I know that's not the case for everyone, but that was the case for me because I knew the intention of where we wanted to go. So I want to leave you with, once you know that vision, you know the strategy that you need to get there, then it comes to sacrifice and that's like the biggest piece that I think is not the sexy piece to talk about, which is sacrifice and discipline. But it takes sacrifice and discipline over and over and over again, because people are going to see the flashy accolades right, like people are going to see this farm and think, wow, like that's the milestone. But what most people don't see is behind the scenes, day in and day out, the repetitive work that goes into this, the trust, the investment and the vision that it took to bring this to life. So I just encourage all of you that if you're listening to this and you're excited about doing something like this, you know, for you and your family or maybe you're sitting here listening to this and thinking, wow, I didn't even think that was possible. For me it is possible.

Speaker 0:

My husband and I have no farming experience and we don't come from a line of farmers in our family and you know, for a lot of people they might look at us and say, well, what are you doing? You have no business running a farm and for us, you know we kind of took the concept of listen. We are going to roll up our sleeves, we're going to learn as much as possible, we're going to learn from the experts that are on here, and we're just so excited to bring people here and show them that, whatever your vision of your lifestyle is for you, that you can create it yourself. So stay in touch. On Instagram, this Hudson Farm will include all of the links and you know, if you're around in September, we're going to be hosting our first event, our Founders' Center, on September 8th, and I will see you on the next episode.