Dear Friends,
Many of you have followed us as we embraced, for quite a few years now, a local, sustainable culture at The Hermitage Hotel by sourcing our food and products and other amenities either from Nashville, Tennessee, or regional vendors. We incorporated Hatch Show Print into website and décor in parts of the hotel, we sourced local artisans such as Vincent Peach and Linda Twist to highlight in Rachel’s Boutique, and we even went so far as to start our own garden at the Land Trust for Tennessee’s Farm at Glen Leven. Next year, we will be changing out all of the mattresses in the hotel to beds that are made right here in Nashville.
Today, we are thrilled to announce the purchase of a 245 acre farm in Dickson Co, TN. Double H Farms, as it will be known, is part of a bigger plan to expand our focus on preservation and sustainability. The farm will be used to create a sustainable brand of beef that is distributed beyond the Capitol Grille. It will also grow corn for a future grist mill and will eventually help expand the gardening program.
“The goal is to focus the future of The Hermitage Hotel and Capitol Grille by helping to preserve land, continue sustainable farming practices, and make our product more available to the community,” said Greg Sligh, managing director of The Hermitage Hotel and now also president of Double H Farms, LLC.
Farm operations will be overseen by Greg Sligh in cooperation with Executive Chef Tyler Brown and the rest of The Hermitage Hotel and Capitol Grille team. Mr. Sligh has a strong family history in farming. For more than a century his family owned a 600 acre farm in Missouri. Mr. Sligh spent his summers and school breaks playing and, when old enough, working on the farm with his grandparents. Today, he and his relatives still own and manage the original farm where he vacations with his wife and sons.
The purchase of the farm has been a long time goal born out of the experimenting with raising cattle at the Land Trust for Tennessee’s Farm at Glen Leven in partnership with farmer Blair Myers. That project was spearheaded by Executive Chef and Head Farmer, Tyler Brown who will be actively involved, working with Greg to develop an ideal plan for the new venture. The initial goal for this farm is to develop and increase the herd of grass-fed cattle. Diners at the Capitol Grille have also been enjoying some of the beef which has been grazing in the sunny pastures at the Farm at Glen Leven. However, with the increasing demands of the restaurant the larger amount of acreage allows for the herd to be increased significantly. We also plan to sell the Double H Farms brand of beef to other interested restaurants in Nashville and elsewhere.
“For the past few years we have embraced the culture of locally sourced and sustainably grown food with the Capitol Grille and locally produced items throughout The Hermitage Hotel, with more to come. This move will enable us to impact a much larger number of people,” said Executive Chef Tyler Brown
Nestled in the hills of White Bluff, Tennessee and bordering Montgomery Bell State Park, Double H Farms is an ideal setting with creeks that are fed by natural springs from the park. This setting will allow for the rotation of cattle from one pasture to another to allow them to graze on the sweet grasses in the fields through a relatively simple process because of the infrastructure that already exists on the land. The Farm is protected with a conservation easement and will always be a continuation of the Duke family’s home and farm, founded in the 1930’s.
Visit our Facebook page at The Hermitage Hotel – Nashville for more photos and updates on the farm.
