By Cynthia Marone
What Rivendell Farms is today began years ago during Megan Franklin’s summer camp days. Megan had always wanted to own or run her own camp since her time working at them throughout high school, but it did not come to pass. Instead of letting her dream die on the vine, Rivendell Farms, which she co-founded with husband Garret Lattanzi, has turned into much more than a family-run working farm. It has become a place for classes and workshops that are filled with people who are there to support and share while surrounded by nature. It’s year-round summer camp energy, regardless of the season, right here in Riegelsville. “Really, the farm and classroom and the melding together of all these things, this is like the culminating vision of having a space that adult learners can come to that can be a retreat feeling,” Megan, 42, said. “Trying new things as an adult is hard and failing is hard. Being bad at something is really hard, but it's also incredible to get it, and just being here over and over for those moments, it's just such a delight.”
Much like its namesake Elvish valley in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings,” Rivendell Farms— a moniker that came with the land when Megan and Garret took over in 2022—is a place of peace and healing. In addition to its sustainably grown produce, herbs and flowers that are available at its farmstand, it’s also a spot where cut-your-own bouquets are gathered and spaces play host to classrooms and workshops, many helmed by Megan and Garret, for learning at every level for all kinds of knowledge, from wildcrafting to woodworking, creative arts to carpentry and poison ivy identification to pollinator garden planting.
“The last few workshops we've had here, they involved walking the land, collecting materials and then disseminating those materials in some way. There are not doors in the sense this land is also the teacher, and this land is also the workshop,” Megan, who helms classes in foraging, fine art skills and folk remedies, such as creating tinctures, said. “Just the way we have our property set up, we have a lot of indoor and outdoor spaces, and they kind of flow into each other.”
From its bountiful harvests to breathtaking beauty, Rivendell Farms and its land have been generous, and for that, Megan and her family see themselves as its caretakers. They are picking up where previous generations left off while simultaneously preparing the land for the generations to come. “It's stewardship versus what the land gives us. The farm, the property, the house—we're in an old Bucks County stone house with an old Bucks County stone barn and we are on Lenape land—we are temporary stewards here and that feels important to acknowledge,” Megan said, adding Garret handles the fine details of farm life and has been integral to bringing this vision of Rivendell to life. “My son Elias is very much a steward as well. He's very environmentally conscious just by nature. He very much talks about how, when he grows up, he wants to stay on the farm, which I love that he feels that way. That certainly would be incredible if that's what he decided he did want down the road.”
Much like 10-year-old Elias, Megan was deeply connected to the land while growing up. In the woods near her childhood home in Warren County, N.J., she would ride a neighbor’s horses, hike and delve into her first forays into foraging and wildcrafting, which “is foraging to make items for the pantry shelf essentially, either medicinal elixirs or food,” she said. She developed a love of camping, paddling, backpacking and rock climbing that lent itself to her work at summer camps during her teens, but when it came time to decide on a future career, she turned to her first passion. “I had known I wanted to be in the world of archeology from the time I was very little. My parents had gone to see the King Tut exhibit. That book was on my bookshelf, and I was hooked,” Megan, whose father is a master carpenter who builds fine furniture and her mother is an artist who creates landscape oil paintings, said. “My mom grew up in New York, and we went to The Metropolitan Museum of Art frequently when I was a kid. They really encouraged my curiosity about art and archeology from very young.”
Megan graduated early, just as she did high school, from the University of Albany, State University of New York, in 2003 with bachelor’s degrees in both art history and archeology. Her internship at the New York State Museum in Albany turned into a job offer as a lab archeologist, but the city’s cost of living outpaced her pay. She returned home and began working in the construction industry, starting as a housepainter. She jumped to being a project manager for a construction company, then a closeout project manager for a custom cabinetry firm, but she was ready to take another leap. “I loved being in the trades, but having something steady was, I guess, the goal and I knew I'd wanted to get a higher degree,” Megan, who co-teaches several classes at the farm with husband Garret, a carpenter, said.
She returned to academia and earned a master’s degree in 2008 at Drexel University in curriculum and instruction. Since 2015, she has been the curriculum developer at Delaware Valley University in Doylestown, where she has transitioned to teaching. She currently is instructing several sections of undergraduate art appreciation called Intro to the Arts that is a combination of art history, contemporary art movements and hands-on art instruction, as well as being an associate professor at Centenary University in Hackettstown, N.J., since 2011. Helping others learn while also fueling her own craving to know more naturally leant itself to Rivendell.
“I'm hoping to create a culture of mutual learning. You're holding space, you're being the container for space, but you're allowing the people in the space to help in the work and to be participant in their own learning. That's very much, I think, my ethos as a teacher and also what I'm hoping this space becomes,” Megan, whose family shares the farm with 2-year-old German wirehaired pointer Lumi, cats Whinny and Poppy, and 18 chickens, said. “It's a container not for me to be the teacher but for the community to be inside of together.”
Megan’s curiosity extends to her numerous hobbies. The latter and their number were among the reasons her family looked for a space to grow into and one that would support both her and Garret’s workstations. Though she continues to delight in outdoor activities, the farm’s space allows Megan to indulge her many creative pursuits in addition to her revamp of handmade finds. “I love printmaking. Working with wood, woodcutting or linoleum block cutting. Collage has always been a medium I love. I've had so many hobbies over so many years. Clay's been something that's been a longtime passion for me. Making paints. I had gotten into bead making,” Megan, whose father taught her woodworking skills as a child, said. “I love antiquing and thrift shopping and the thrill of the hunt of those things. I love bringing things home that have history to them and using those things to help create these beautiful spaces we're inviting people into. It's really about the reverence of an object.”
Having deep respect for things, places and people is a hallmark of Megan’s life and something she hopes everyone who comes to the farm, whether it’s for classes or to fill a tote bag with produce, feels. Most of all she wants everyone to feel joy in the process of learning—and even failing along the way—as much as she does. “I love learning new things. Being fresh to something is so humbling,” Megan Franklin said. “I take classes as often as time affords and there is nothing like being terrible at something and then getting it. I have been so blessed to be guided by incredible mentors and teachers. My life is vibrant with community, chores, my students, my art, my classroom space. Curiosity and creativity are everything —and I hope those two things will keep me young!”
For more information about Rivendell Farms in Riegelsville and its classes and workshops, visit www.rivendellfarms.org.
Cynthia Marone is a freelance writer who lives in Bucks County.