Your Guide: Applecrest 100-Year Anniversary Celebration

Now in its 100th year, Applecrest Farm Orchards, America’s oldest continuously operating apple orchard, is proud to celebrate its next exciting expansion.

Peter and Todd Wagner, owners of Applecrest Farm, invite the community to a groundbreaking ceremony this Sunday, September 29th, at 1 p.m., to mark the start of construction on a brand-new facility. Special guests attending the celebration will include State Sen. Nancy Stiles, New Hampshire Commissioner of Agriculture Lorraine Merrill and State Rep. Elaine Ahearn.

With a planned completion in the fall of 2014, the state-of-the-art facility will include a new farm stand, bakery and farm-to-table restaurant. The 12,000-square-foot building will provide an expanded retail space to accommodate the vast array of grown-on-the-farm fruits and vegetables, bakery items, artisan goods and other local products.

"There will be few purer expressions of the farm-to-table concept, than at our bistro-style restaurant," Todd Wagner said. "The menu will change not just by the season, but by the day, with a bill of fare sourced literally out the front door."

With its stone fireplace and orchard views, the restaurant will also provide a year-round community gathering place, where locals and passersby alike can meet and chat over a bite to eat. In the evenings, the restaurant and lantern-lit fieldstone patio will be a haven for a season-long dinner series and select private functions.

As a part of the farm’s continued efforts towards energy self-sufficiency, the new building will be fitted with a roof-mounted PV solar array, complementing the farm's existing 50KW system. Once this solar array is installed, the farm will be nearly 100 percent off the grid at peak season. Applecrest is pleased to be working with general contractor Martini North of Portsmouth, and design and architecture firm Alba Architects of North Woodstock.

Following the groundbreaking ceremony, at 2:45 p.m., an Applecrest memoirette by world renowned author John Irving will be read aloud along with an excerpt from his novel, The Cider House Rules. A close family friend and an Applecrest farm hand in his youth, Irving wrote the memoirette specifically for the centennial occasion. Family member Dana Wagner will conduct the reading.  

The 100th Anniversary Celebration will also feature live music, including a bluegrass fiddle competition at noon. Other fun family activities will include a pie-eating contest, an apple-peeling contest and a competition to guess the weight of a giant pumpkin.

For a full schedule of events, please visit www.applecrest.com/blog.

Submitted by Applecrest Farm Orchards.