Earthly Work, Lofty Ambition
At Silverbrook Manor, the Land Yields Produce and Possibility
By Christopher Stella
Photos by Lisa Nichols
“Something here tends to slow people down before they notice it happening,” says Mindy Yang of Silverbrook Manor, the estate she shares with her partner, William Harris. When you set foot on the property’s sprawling 54 acres, something in the air shifts, suddenly and mysteriously. “Here, different ways of feeling become one shared practice, one breathing ecosystem.” Harris and Yang boast backgrounds as rich and compelling as Silverbrook Manor’s history. Harris is an artist, founding partner of the international design firm AvroKO, and three-time James Beard Award winner, having created hospitality spaces from Michelin-starred restaurants to luxury hotels across four continents. Yang is co-founder and CEO of the World Taste & Smell Association—a global alliance of sensory experts advancing the science of taste and smell—and a sensory innovator, consultant, and researcher, whose own work has taken her from the
ateliers of Chanel to collaborations with NASA.
The estate has been home to a diversity of inhabitants since its initial construction in the 18th century—a family of farmers, the founder of a cough-drop fortune, a judge, a gentleman dairy farmer, and a world-renowned Broadway actress among them. Harris and Yang discovered the property during the pandemic, during which they divided their time between an apartment in New York City and a cottage in Tuxedo Park, NY. They now see themselves as the latest occupants in that lineage, not owners as much as caretakers. “It felt like being entrusted with something,” Yang says. “With it, we became grateful stewards.”
The home itself is a grand colonial that Harris and Yang have made into a canvas for their interests, expressions, and elevated aesthetic: warm Mid-Century Modern furniture complementing 19th-century carved wood mantels, deep green walls to contrast wide pine floorboards, and Harris’ art integrated throughout. Everything has intention, with each path, garden, gathering space, and planting meant to inspire curiosity and connection. What Silverbrook Manor is today resists easy explanation. It’s a working farm practicing regenerative agriculture, a research facility experimenting with food forests and native seed-keeping, a home to a plant-medicine library, an extensive modern perfumery archive, and the aforementioned World Taste & Smell Association. The thread connecting them is the Farm Club—a membership program that offers participants access to the property and its bounty, and curated experiences meant to foster connection to the land and other creative professionals who are willing to put in the work. “This is the next level of CSA membership,” Harris says.
“People that are interested in getting their hands dirty and being part of the growing, learning, having that soulful connection to the land.”
Days here move between field and hearth, with guests and participants tending to animals, foraging, and digging into the soil, before settling into the historic house to exchangeexperiences, learning, and to connect with each other and themselves. It is, literally and figuratively, a shift from exterior to interior. “These nature salons—they get personal, intimate, they go deep,” notes Harris. “We set the table and tend the place; the community decides what fills it,” adds Yang.
The gatherings are the point. Guests arrive as strangers—chefs, scientists, artists, the simply curious—and leave connected in conversation that outlasts the afternoon. It’s a deliberate cross-pollination: one person’s expertise with another’s curiosity, to see what grows. In this way, Silverbrook is more than a farm; it’s a place where art, science, agriculture, hospitality, and wellness meet. “We’re the catalyst… the nature, the regenerative farming, reconnection to land. But where the experimentation goes from there, it could lead anywhere.” At Silverbrook Manor, what’s cultivated isn’t only in the soil. ––silverbrookmanor.com
