ELISA BULGRIN: ON THE LAND
Photography: Gillian Gaughan
“Throughout my life I’ve heard family use this Australian expression ‘on the land’, I suppose meaning to live in the country, but quite intentionally - to work it, to take it on as a way of life,” Elisa Bulgrin relays. “Longfield Farm is my attempt to do just that, here in New Canaan,
within realistic commuting distance to Manhattan for my husband, and with the conveniences of suburban life for our three elementary school-aged children.”
Though Elisa has lived in the United States for over 20 years, her Aussie background and character are evident. She’s direct, clear, and a little rugged. She has a zest for life and the sense that everyday is a new adventure. She loves getting her hands into the earth. And she’s passionate about flowers, vegetables, her chickens, and the bounty she’s turning into her brand.
Her house is Country Farmhouse Chic. Inside, the walls are intentionally cluttered with painted portraits of, or done by Elisa’s ‘Mum’, ‘Granny’ and other family members, and photographs of the old family farms back in Australia - with enormous herds of livestock. And outside, the three German Shorthaired Pointers have paw-sanded the two front doors to serve as a kind of ‘Welcome To Our Farm’ billboard.
“My parents grew up in Melbourne, but both spent a great deal of time in the country at properties belonging to their respective families, so it was natural to them that we would do the same. We lived in Sydney, but on weekends, when friends were off to the beach, we drove an hour-and-a-half south to our farm in the Southern Highlands. It was about 600 acres with gardens and paddocks of cattle and horses, surrounded by bush filled with the flowering native Wattle and steep escarpments that made for some pretty amazing horse riding. It was what we’d call a ‘hobby farm’,” Elisa says quite casually about what sounds pretty grand. “While my Dad was in the magazine business, his siblings followed my Granny and Pop, who’d moved to Victoria’s Western District in middle age, into farming. They are ‘farmers’ in the realest sense of the word - one of their properties is over two million acres - and most of my cousins are continuing this legacy, doing some pretty interesting things in regenerative agriculture and the like.”
“As for me, I was a ski racer - yes, you can ski in Australia! - and my life took a turn when I came to the United States for high school at the Green Mountain Valley School, a ski academy in Waitsfield, Vermont. I went on to ski for Brown, where I majored in the History of Art and Architecture. Those four years were among the best of my life, for all the quintessential reasons a person would say that about Brown. Among them, its Open Curriculum, which gave me the freedom to take a course with a professor named Mark Cladis called ‘Religion Gone Wild: Spiritually and the Environment’ - its themes harked to my homesickness for Australia and, specifically, the farm - and I still return to its materials all these years later.”
“From Providence, I moved to New York City, where I earned a Masters in Visual Arts Administration at NYU Steinhardt and worked in each of the ‘Big Three’ auction houses, ultimately landing at Sotheby’s International Realty as their Auction Liaison at the now former York Avenue auction house. During this time, I met my husband skiing one weekend in Vermont. We were married when I was 26, and within a month we’d closed on a house in New Canaan - both love at first sight, the man and the property!”
“We’d set out with a vision to find somewhere that we could raise a family in a farm-like setting - grow some veggies, perhaps have a horse or two - like what I’d been given a taste of in Australia. Tucked in the furthest corner of town, with a bucolic field that rolls down to a reservoir, it was not a ‘farm’, but it immediately gave me the gut feeling that we were home. A decade later, the ‘farm’ and the family have followed. ‘Longfield Farm’ is the name we gave it for that long field. My ‘farm fantasy’, as I sometimes call it - if not a farm by some standards, then at least in spirit. The kids pick berries, have adventures, get dirty - all the things we’d hoped for.”
“Early on we both commuted and spent weekends laying the groundwork for what the garden has become - other than an old dogwood on the field, it was a completely blank slate. My husband has great vision when it comes to the garden - and can drive the tractor and wield a chainsaw - so much of the hardscaping is his handiwork. I became a stay at home Mum when we welcomed our oldest son, and then our two daughters in quick succession, and gardening became my nap time respite - babies down, overalls on, and out I went, learning as I grew. A kitchen garden with vegetables, of course, and flowers, which you’ll know if you grow them, can be quite addictive. Next, we added a cutting garden, and soon the question was - what was I going to do with all these flowers?”
“So in 2022 I registered Longfield Farm as an LLC as a flower farm and florist, but I wanted to do something that captured the spirit of all that we did at Longfield. I started offering ‘Seasonal Baskets’, with the flowers but also vegetables from the garden, eggs from our chickens, and provisions from other local purveyors, put together in a way that felt like, well, felt like it came from our home. Prettily put together, and with recipes that I use in my own kitchen to bring the basket to life. People loved them - each new order typically came from someone who had received one themselves, which couldn’t have been more affirming feedback.
When we bought our 1952 Chevy, which we affectionately call ‘Dottie’, I started a farmstand offering the flowers and goodies a la carte, to ‘fill a jug’ or ‘build a basket’. ‘Farmstand Fridays’ on Dottie became a fun neighborhood tradition, set up before my morning preschool run, with others dropping by after theirs. New Canaan is special in that way - people show up for one another, and I’m not sure that my business would have gotten its start without the support of our community.”
“In 2023, a friend asked me to help with greenery for the New Canaan Newcomers Holiday House Tour, and since then, you could say the whole flower thing has just kind of blossomed. I’ve always been a creative person, but have never had a craft - not like my mother, a naturally gifted painter. Flowers, in particular seasonal flowers, are such a powerful medium for storytelling, and I think in them I have found my voice. Whether for the big moments - like a wedding - or the small - a simple ‘thinking of you’, flowers are always there, and I treasure these opportunities to bring a little wild and whimsical into people’s lives.”
“In 2024, I launched what I call ‘At The Table’ - a series of seasonal celebrations marking Spring, Summer, Harvest and Holiday. I also offer more traditional private floral workshops, wreath workshops at Christmas, and so on.”
“I like to think that the business begins and ends with the garden. It’s just me out there, plus John on the tractor when time avails. It’s hard work and takes some grit - something learned, I think, from my time as an athlete. Growing flowers - some 16,000 tulips last year and 2,000 dahlia in the ground for this year - and then working with the flowers that I’ve grown, brings me the greatest joy.”
“I am still, first and foremost, a stay-at-home mom!” Elisa declares. “But I couldn’t be more grateful - and surprised - about how things with Longfield Farm have evolved. It has been a very organic process, and like a diamond comes from pressure, I think working within the constraints of my life as a mother, and my pursuit of a product that is authentic to me, has created something pretty special.”
“As for what is next, I honestly do not know. If I’m dreaming, a book, a store? …That professor from Brown had written in a letter when I graduated ‘I have no doubt that you will find home wherever you are in part because of the valley and the water that you carry within you’. The farm fantasy was one I held for my children’s lives, but it turns out being here ‘on the land’ in New Canaan has been the answer to a lot of questions in my own life.”
