At Large

That became apparent this past winter when a massive snowstorm, with 50-mile-per-hour winds, pounded northern Virginia. Lerner lost 20 head of cattle and a couple dozen hogs. “It was soul-numbing,” she says. As a result, she no longer calves year-round, opting not to expose still-young stock to winter weather. Adversity, she says, “keeps you humble and makes you a better farmer in the end, but this is why farmers need a support group.”

By all accounts, she has one. The Hunter’s Head, which serves dinner year-round and lunch and brunch several days a week, derives at least a third of its business from locals. Lerner herself dines there almost daily and stocks her refrigerator with leftovers. If a neighbor fails to show as expected on a holiday such as Thanksgiving, Lerner calls to make sure there is no problem.

Her relations with Upperville residents weren’t always so cordial. On the wall near the tavern’s Dutch door hangs the cartoonish bust of a man who may or may not have played a role—Lerner won’t say definitively—in a kerfuffle that arose back in the mid-1990s. That’s when she refused to allow members of the Piedmont Foxhounds access to her rolling pastures and tree-lined creeks. Prior to her purchase of Ayrshire—which, ironically, she bought from the president of the club—the farm had long been a foxhunting venue. The man whose likeness is portrayed by the bust may even have served as the inspiration for the tavern’s cheeky name. That club president is long gone, and Lerner and Piedmont Foxhounds have over the years discovered their many common interests.

“I think her intensive approach to agriculture made it clear that Ayrshire wouldn’t be as compatible to foxhunting as it had been,” says Tad Zimmerman, one of the four current joint masters of Piedmont Foxhounds. He notes that rotational grazing, which requires the moving of temporary fences, makes it difficult to establish reliable jumps for the horses anyway. “That takes some of the sting out of [the decision], because you realize there’s a reason, and now there’s a better appreciation for the many positive aspects we have in common—working with children, encouraging agriculture, preserving the land.”

“I didn’t fit the foxing program,” says Lerner, “but it was never my intention not to get along.” Citing a shared interest in land preservation, she says that the hunters are now “some of my best friends.” In a show of solidarity, she has sponsored trail rides on her property, hosted a silent auction fund-raiser for the club, and underwritten some medical treatments for the hounds.

Out in the pasture, the animals seem to possess the same unconventional streak as their owner. The White Parks pose with their dramatic black lips and ears and eyelashes that look as though they’ve been enhanced by a tube of Urban Decay mascara. And the spotted pigs flash forward-thrusting ears that resemble singer Justin Bieber’s hairdo. And, funny thing, the farm doesn’t smell. There is no trace of the nose-wrinkling stench of most hog or chicken farms. The pristine air, combined with the sweeping views of the Blue Ridge, might be among the reasons Sandy Lerner seems content—until her next tantrum. •