Stacy grew up in downtown Atlanta, raised by many parental figures including her maternal grandparents, Cliff and Louise Bailey. Both grandparents had grown up on rural southern farms, with dreams of living in the big city. But even after “making it” with successful professional careers and a house in the desirable part of Atlanta, Cliff and Louise were still farmers at heart. From an early age Stacy helped in the half acre farm next to the house in Buckhead where they grew all kinds of vegetables. In the fall she and the cousins would help pickle, can and freeze what they could to extend the produce through the winter.
After completing a degree in Religion at Agnes Scott College, Stacy worked her way into a career as a construction consultant. Although the work was very rewarding, it involved being the first person on a site which would eventually become a Wal-Mart, Home Depot or other large-box retail store. Stacy would see a beautiful forest, wetland or prairie that she knew would soon be stripped and paved. It was soul destroying.
By her mid-thirties Stacy also started to develop medical issues that could be attributed to hormones in factory-farmed meat. This led her and Greg to seek out small local farms for both meat and produce. But it would be another ten years until she would give up on the urban life and follow the reverse path of her grandparents, back to farming.
Now she splits her time between Winding Stair Farm and a restored 150-year-old farmhouse in rural Ireland near her father’s family.
Greg and Stacy met in 2005. They met on Match.com, but it turned out they lived on the same street, five doors down from each other, and had since they bought their houses seven years earlier. But that can happen when you live in a big city like Atlanta. Both were recently divorced and neither ever planned to get married again or move anywhere. So for years they dated and then walked home, to the separate houses.
In 2010 they found this perfect piece of property in North Carolina and bought it as a weekend getaway. A few years later, through the magic of bees, they met Michelle and Ezra. And what started as needing a caretaker for a vacation property, then evolved into a small garden for their own use, and now to a farm that provides local food to Macon County.
Although Greg still works in Atlanta during the week, Stacy has left her consulting job. Both have sold those Atlanta houses they said they would never leave and made Western North Carolina home.