Orange County's Sweet Clover Farm makes comeback with new owners but with similar mission
High school science teacher turned businessman Matt Frohmann is making a 200-year-old property off Route 32 an event space, a vacation spot, and the new headquarters for his distillery.
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There's new life at an old scenic farm once known for its deep history and epic family parties.
High school science teacher turned businessman Matt Frohmann is making a 200-year-old property off Route 32 an event space, a vacation spot, and the new headquarters for his distillery.
It has taken two years to bring Sweet Clover Farm back to working order.
"We sanitized. We cleaned. We rebuilt," Frohmann said as he showed News 12 around the distillery.
The five-building property was a dairy farm in the 1800s.
It then became a popular winery until it closed in 2023, leaving the five buildings vacant and unmaintained.
Then Frohmann and his business partner won a state grant worth $400,000, brought in five investors, and dove right in.
They plan to grow ingredients on site for their gins and bourbons.
That is only part of their vision.
"The community is so excited we're not knocking this house, and we're preserving history," Frohmann said during a tour of the main house. "We're preserving the farm. We're preserving the barn."
They rent the main house out to travelers, military groups, and even film crews.
A film crew currently has the house's interior turned into a movie set.
Frohmann is also turning an old train station on the property into retail space.
His first tenant will be local barber Jasyn Gilmore.
Gilmore, a new business owner, has been holding pop-up events over the last year, and is excited to open up shop in a historic place.
"I mean, look at this place. It's beautiful," he said. "It has so much potential and all original buildings. It's just really cool."
While it might have been more cost-effective to tear down the buildings and build new ones than to renovate everything, Frohmann did not want to disappoint the public.
A buzz had been circulating about the future of the property.
"There were rumors going round about who bought it and what we were going to do with it," Frohmann said. "We're doing exactly what the previous owners did. We're just updating it and making it more sustainable."
The property is still a work in progress.
Frohmann said that as the farm brings in more revenue, the staff will be able to take on more renovation projects.
The grand opening of Sweet Clover Farm begins Saturday at 12 p.m. and runs through the evening.
