Ask Paul Donhauser to rank his favorite landmarks from his childhood growing up on the North Shore, and two indelible vestiges quickly rise to the top, both of which were visible from his car window whether he was whizzing up Interstate 95 north or stuck in traffic on Route 1.
“There were Frank Giuffrida’s cows in front of the Hilltop on Route 1 and then there were these,” the Hamilton native enthuses, pointing to the two prodigious, rust-kissed grain silos bound at the hip by the equally recognizable sign for Alfalfa Farm.
And while Giuffrida’s ceramic herd sauntered on to greener pastures when the fabled steakhouse closed its doors in 2013, Donhauser and his partner, Brian Workman, have ensured that another generation of motorists will be able to catch a glimpse of the two towering grain vaults.
In May, Donhauser and Workman unveiled Alfalfa Farm Cellars, featuring a sweeping reimagination of the Topsfield vestige that adds both a distillery and a craft brewery to the existing winery. In doing so, Donhauser is also reinvigorating his beloved Essex County Brewing Co., which operated at Mills 58 in Peabody from late 2018 to early 2023 before merging with Ipswich Ale Brewery.
But that’s just one part of this remarkable story of the transformation of the 300-year-old former dairy farm into a community hub and agritourism destination.
“People say, ‘Oh, you’re opening the brewery again?’ and I say, ‘No, we’re not,’” Donhauser says. “We’re opening up an experience.”
From the beer garden, to the multiple terraces, to adding an array of plantings to the existing vineyard, to even enabling patrons to sip their favorite libations in one of the cavernous silos, Donhauser, 53, has clearly delivered on that vision. It is equally evident that the monumental undertaking, which likely rivals any projects from his day job as the vice president for global real estate and facilities at Boston Scientific, clearly was a labor of love.
“This is where I’m from,” emphasizes the Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School graduate, who married an Essex girl and resides in Boxford with their twin sons. “I’ve always wanted as it got later in my career to come back into the community and do something.”
Preserving the past
As the executor of his father’s estate, Ben Adelman did not have to beat the bushes for offers on the North Shore landmark in the spring of 2024, including several from developers who were looking to raze the farm and its signature silos for an even more lucrative cash crop — townhouses.
Donhauser was relatively late to the game but was quick to push all of his chips onto the table after hearing that it would take a compelling offer to get the deal done.
“The compelling offer ended up being we’ll just take it as is, full price, no contingencies,” Donhauser says of the all-cash purchase.
It was a risky move given that the real estate veteran didn’t have any time to do his normal due diligence, not to mention he had no inkling as to what reception his vision would receive from the town. But one meeting with Topsfield Town Administrator Kevin Hartunian quickly alleviated those fears.
Like Donhauser, the two statuesque grain depositories served as a north star of sorts for Hartunian, who grew up in Beverly. Furthermore, Donhauser’s plans melded seamlessly with the town’s desire to create outdoor, community-based spaces.
“As a kid driving up north from Beverly, I would see it on my right and I knew where I was,” Hartunian recalls. “Paul’s vision for the farm and to invest in it and preserve it, while making it an active and productive use forward, is exactly what aligns with our master plan.”
The old dairy barn at Alfalfa housed a vast herd of award-winning Guernseys and spanned the better part of a football field. Originally, Donhauser was hoping to use some of the existing structures on that mammoth footprint.
“It was great until we got into the building to see what was actually here,” Donhauser explains.
Instead, starting in the fall of 2024, he unleashed his Boxford neighbor Tom Duval and his construction crew on the premises. Soon, only the silos and the aircraft carrier of a foundation, complete with a series of stalls and cellars below, remained.
On one end, an expansive tasting room was erected, complete with two garage-style doors opening up to a sprawling beer garden with carbon steel fire pits and sunset views of the winery’s orchard below and Ferncroft Country Club off in the distance. Inside, patrons will be greeted by cafe-style seating and large, welcoming tables.
Donhauser says the space is a nod to his German heritage and the neighborly gasthauses that his father, Willibald, introduced him to during summer sojourns to his childhood home in Sulzbach-Rosenberg, Bavaria.
Connected to the brewery by a sprawling outdoor terrace is the winery and distillery. Boasting a farm retail store, a pair of fireplaces and a new pot still, the striking building sits in the shadow of the silos and in the same spot where Richard Adelman built the original Alfalfa Farm Winery back in 1994. And while Richard’s son, Ben, can remember crawling through a rusted hole and exploring the vacant south silo as a kid, patrons can now grab a dirty martini, glass of wine or one of Essex County Brewing’s hop-forward drafts and wander through both vacant grain orbs through a more conventional entrance.
“We had to call the original silo company from the Midwest and have a structural engineer come out and tell us where to cut,” Donhauser says of the entrance that leads from the tasting lounge and boutique bar.
Farming for the future
Donhauser believes that Alfalfa Farm may be the first in the state to have three different Farmer Series licenses hanging on its wall, with special pouring permits for the brewery, the winery and the distillery. The three licenses enable patrons to stroll the premises with their favorite libations and also allow for the farm to provide the alcohol for its planned wedding and events enterprise.
“This is the first that I’m aware of where we are uniting three licenses on one property,” Donhauser says. “With the Farmer Series, 51% of ingredients have to be local and it removes the middleman. We can’t serve anyone else’s products here, and we will manufacture everything on site.”
It’s safe to say that the prospect of having his new office located directly on a historic farm is music to the ears to lead brewer Ian MacLeod.
“To be able to say we’re on a farm, we’re growing crops, we’re using those things in our beer — those are the important things,” MacLeod says. “The ideals that got me into the industry I think I can tap back into here at Alfalfa.”
The circular economy that the farm will provide is tremendously appealing to Donhauser, MacLeod and head distiller Bethany Walker.
“The way you brew, the way you make wine and distill spirits, it’s all similar processes,” Donhauser notes. “What’s incredible is that we can take the byproduct of brewing and we can use it to distill spirits.”
The possibilities are seemingly endless on this 11-acre blank canvas off Rowley Bridge Road, and Donhauser is eager to let it all play out organically as he welcomes local farmers, food trucks and artisans to sell their goods. He would like to partner with nearby Essex North Shore Agricultural & Technical School to have its students help out with the farm, as well.
“We want to have this agricultural and educational piece to this,” Donhauser says.
Knowing that the farm and its famed silos will continue to be a beacon for another generation of motorists off I-95 is a gratifying turn of events for Ben Adelman, who was born the same week that his parents closed on the farm in 1975.
“I think it’s great that it’s going to stay a farm and that they are putting the energy and money into just making it a really great place and taking it to the next level,” Adelman says. “It always had that potential; it just needed someone to come along and do what they are doing.”
Suffice it to say, spending much of his childhood here and then returning to live in one of the apartments above the farmhouse after college was a pretty idyllic — and never boring — existence.
“My mom (Merril) and dad were always looking for interesting, ‘farmy’ sort of things to do with that property,” he says.
That included a prolific herd of Polled Hereford beef cattle whose descendants are still shown each fall at the Topsfield Fair by Essex Tech students; a rabbit farm; a thriving thoroughbred racing horse enterprise; a community garden for North Shore Community College, where his father was a professor; and, eventually, the winery.
As a young boy, Adelman can vividly remember cautiously walking through the narrow pathway of stalls through a gauntlet of high-strung thoroughbreds nipping at him as they waited to be unleashed at Suffolk Downs that weekend. One evening, he propped up a ladder and scaled one of the silos with a camera and let the shutter fly.
“The place just had a certain presence to it,” Adelman says.
Brewing memories new and old
At its peak, the 600-acre dairy farm and its massive herd of Guernseys wandered all the way over to what is now Ferncroft Country Club in Middleton. In 1956, when the state unveiled its plans to route a new highway as part of President Dwight Eisenhower’s National Interstate and Defense Highways Act right through the cows’ favorite grazing stretch, a legal battle ensued and an injunction was put on the project. The solution? Build a set of tunnels under the interstate to let the cows meander back and forth.
“I’ve had people come up to me and say, ‘I had my first kiss in those tunnels,’” Donhauser says with a chuckle. “I think we’re going to have people come here and we’re going to encourage them to give us their stories. We’re going to figure out a way to chronicle all of those, and I can’t imagine what we’re going to unlock.”
In the end, however, the underlying through line in this ambitious venture is not the tunnels, the famed Guernseys or even the famed silos.
It’s about the beer and Donhauser finding the perfect spot to relaunch an endeavor that all started at the sampling table at an Ales Over ALS event for his late friend Mark Tessicini.
It was there that Donhauser first tasted Julian Miller’s craveable handiwork and knew he had to hire the budding brewing star from the North Shore Brewers club.
Not long after, Essex County Brewing became a North Shore favorite after opening its doors on Pulaski Street in November 2018. Unfortunately, a combination of the pandemic and the ending of his lease forced Donhauser to close the doors to the Peabody taproom in January 2023.
“When we started in Peabody, it was to bring good beer to the North Shore,” he says. “Now, people can pretty much get good liquid anywhere, so what else are you going to give them?” A winery, a distillery, an intimate look inside a grain silo, and a sweeping sunset view over a grape vineyard and distant country club would seem like a pretty good start.