Beth Podhajecki is moving her Loon Meadow Farm out of Norfolk for greener pastures. The quaint and serene sight of horse and carriage rides through the village is coming to an end this month. Photograph by Bruce Frisch

Beth and Steve Podhajecki look toward new business in New York state
By Kit O’Brien

As Spring, 2016 comes to a start, Beth and Steve Podhajecki’s business of horse-drawn carriage services in Norfolk comes to an end. Loon Meadow Farm itself is not at an end, though, as Beth and Steve Podhajecki will be moving with their popular and iconic business from Norfolk to Greenfield Center in New York, neighboring Saratoga Springs.

Prior to moving to Norfolk, Beth Denis lived in Goshen, starting the business by herself in Torrington in the mid-1980’s, taking her horses and carriages to events such as weddings, festivals, parties, and even funerals with a horse drawn hearse. After moving to Norfolk 30 years ago with her two children, Beth established Loon Meadow farm and eventually met and married Steve Podhajecki .

Beth Podhajecki’s love for driving horses started when she was a young girl. She explains, “My cousin received a Shetland pony for Christmas with a pony cart and harness. That snowy Christmas morning she and her dad came trotting up our driveway. It was just the coolest thing, being an animal lover, seeing this pony come trotting up!” After that, she taught every horse she owned to drive.

She started showing horses in her 20’s but decided that was not the right fit for her, so she began doing commercial work to feed her desire for driving horses. The first wedding she and her team performed was her brother’s, driving a black Morgan named Sam hitched to an antique surrey. This event, which was more complimentary than anything else, was the beginning of a whole new business for her.

“Back then, here was a fad for ponies,” Podhajecki explains, “People used to buy ponies, like my cousin’s father did, as gifts for their kids. Instead of buying a Nintendo, they would buy a pony with a cart.” The fad led Podhajecki to start her own business.

In the 1970’s Podhajecki started buying ponies to train in driving, refresh the driving skills of those who had already been trained or put them with a harness and cart to sell them. She soon started doing pony parties and giving pony rides to children. “That’s where my kids learned to hate horses,” she laughs, “they only saw the work side of it.”

In the early ‘80’s Podhajecki bought her first pair of draft horses, named Joe and Jerry. The horses had worked in Disney World in Florida and were her first pair able to work larger vehicles, which allowed Podhajecki to start giving hay and sleigh rides for groups . The result was Loon Meadow Farm, opened in the mid-1980’s.

“I loved the town in general,” she says. “It is very special. It has more of a unique feel to it than the surrounding towns and has retained its older feel with the architecture and the buildings. It is very quaint, so I thought that it would be the perfect place to do horse and carriage rides.”

Ironically, most of Loon Meadow Farm’s work has been done outside of the town. Podhajecki explains that because of the nature of the work, for it to be viable they not only had to work from their home base but be available to go elsewhere to provide people with rides for special events. Along with traveling up to 100 miles outside of town for events, they also had the experience of driving trailers in cold and stormy weather through all hours of the night.

The Podhajeckis’ move to New York will help the business settle in a less challenging way. Beth remarked, “There have been lots of good times, unique times, different things we’ve done, experiences we’ve had. Although the business is going with us, it will change and evolve again, as we will in our later years, in a different setting.”

Future goals for the Podhajeckis’ business will include rides on their 153 acre property in New York state while continuing to provide livery services for weddings and funerals. Their plans include building a bed and breakfast for lodging visitors who come to the tourist attractions in the area, and they will eventually build their version of a B&B – a barn and breakfast – so customers can sleep at the same location where the horses are stabled.

A showcasing of their antique carriages and artifacts will also be included as part of their new business, to be displayed in their antique post and beam 1700’s barn.

Podhajecki states, “The new business is in my head and it’s growing. It’s only a matter of making it happen. It is bittersweet leaving Norfolk, but we would like people to know we appreciated being here. The interactions we’ve had with everyone here have been wonderful. It’s time to go forward and do something new. It has been quite a ride.”