How did we get here? The story of how we started Capella Farm.

It’s September of 2026 and while we’ve lived and worked on Capella for just over three years, I still can’t seem to give a simple answer to the question: how did you end up with a farm?

There is no simple answer to that question so I thought I’d give the more complicated one which started back in Denver in 2018.

2018 - Breweries and Berlin

Gene and I had just moved back to the states after he had completed his Master Brewer training at the VLB institute in Berlin. After bumming around Europe for a while our plan was to come back to the states where Gene would start his microbrewery with his brother, Blake, and his best friend, Kyle. Of course, life never goes according to plan and Blake and Kyle both backed out of the microbrewery idea before we had even touchdown stateside. At the time the news was devastating. In hindsight, we really lucked out.

While Gene was pivoting, I took the opportunity to think about what ways I would also like to course correct? After all, my career in web design and digital marketing was sparking anything but joy in my heart. I wanted to do something I believed in for a living (don’t we all?) and explaining that I didn’t work at nor control the Google search results to one more client was slowly sucking the life out of me. I needed to find something to sink my teeth into so I defaulted back to an old interest of mine - sustainability.

2019 - UCLA and Finding Our Way and a Wedding

Gene returned to work at the Denver brewery he had left to attend his training program while we worked together to renovate the home we had also purchased in 2018 (different story). At the same time, I continued my freelance digital work but I had added on a Certification program in Sustainability via UCLA online. My world was opening to new and interesting concepts like biophilic design, food waste and security, regenerative agriculture, and photovoltaic systems. I nosedived down a rabbit-hole of nature-centric philosophies and never looked back.

2020 - Quiet Work

If you are old enough to read this post, you are old enough to remember the COVID pandemic. What an incredibly terrifying time to be alive.

2021 - Rings of Destiny

Everyone was antsy to get out and it didn’t particularly matter where “out” was. We needed

2022 - Sixteen Feet of Freedom

2023 - A 111 Acre Leap

2024 - Humbled & Hungry

2025 -