The first time Jennifer de Beausset walked Westcroft Gardens and Farm, she stopped in her tracks. “‘Whoa,’” she remembers saying. “I knew I’d just entered somewhere really special.”
Raised among colonial stone houses in Pennsylvania, she thought she understood history. But stepping onto the Grosse Ile farm that has belonged to her husband Kyle’s family since 1776 felt different. The walls of the house still whispered with ancient stories. The gardens, alive with azaleas and rhododendrons, bore the fingerprints of ancestors who had planted them generations earlier. “It was breathtaking,” Jennifer says. “I wasn’t sure what our role would be, but I knew we’d better not mess this up.”
Kyle is the eighth generation of his family to care for Westcroft; their two young boys make nine. He grew up visiting the farm during summers, but for years he built a life in Boston. When the moment came to choose—suburban Massachusetts or his family’s legacy—the choice was clear. “It was no question,” he says. “Every day I’m here, I feel grateful to be around this beauty and to try to bring that to other people.”
The couple now lives in the home his grandparents once occupied. Artifacts from generations gone by remain: a trunk with his great-great-grandfather’s handwriting, paintings by his grandmother, the towering evergreens planted by his great-grandfather Ernie, who transformed bare farmland into a sanctuary for migrating birds. “We try to think seven generations back and seven generations forward,” Kyle says. “How do we honor what they did, and keep this place alive for the next?”
For Jennifer, a licensed psychotherapist, the land’s history offered more than roots. After COVID shifted what people needed from therapy, she moved her practice into Westcroft. “We might walk and talk through the gardens, sit under a tree, or pick lavender together,” she says. “Sometimes a child throws a ball back and forth. And in the rhythm of play, really deep truths come out.”
Luna, the farm cat, helps too: she hops into anxious laps and opens up conversations. There’s also the hush of the woods, the grounding of bare feet in grass, the comfort of birdsong and breeze. “Clients tell me this is their happy place,” Jennifer says. “Nature does something I can’t manufacture.”
Even mowing became unexpectedly meditative for Jennifer. At first, she was intimidated by the farm’s zero-turn mower, which reminded her of a bucking bronco. But once she got the hang of it, she realized it mirrored her own state of mind: when she was stressed, the machine jolted; when she was centered, it glided. ‘It became another grounding practice for me,’ she says.”
Kyle fully embraces Jennifer’s vision. “Healing is a huge part of Westcroft’s future,” he says.
Westcroft’s story is also one of adaptation. A few years ago, Kyle and Jennifer made the difficult decision to close the plant nursery that had served families for more than a century. Gratitude softened the grief. “We’re thankful for everyone who bought flowers here, because they’re part of why Westcroft still exists,” Kyle says.
Today, the farm thrives as a wedding venue, event space, and general community hub. “People ask us what we grow now,” Jennifer says with a smile. “We grow love.” She invites couples who marry in the gardens to return, to let their family stories entwine with the farm’s. Kyle frames it simply: “When people visit or have weddings here, their story becomes part of ours. We’re grateful for everyone who entrusts us with that.”
Westcroft is not just for celebrations. Community Grown Gardens, a nonprofit, operates a hoop house on the property, teaching kindergarteners to plant vegetables and providing fresh food to pantries. Volunteers with disabilities find purpose in the soil. Birders thrill to the glimpses of rare wildlife: “They came from all over for a little saw-whet owl in an evergreen,” Kyle recalls. “I thought, ‘That owl can’t speak for itself—we have to protect it.’” Jennifer adds, “There’s a deeply rooted sense of rehabilitation through nature here.”
At the end of a long day, Jennifer stands in the lavender-scented air and feels the farm’s steady pulse. ““Sometimes the farm tells me what to do, not the other way around,” she reflects. “It has a life of its own. So whatever didn’t get crossed off my to-do list will be there tomorrow. The farm has been okay for centuries; it will be okay.”
And since the farm talks, what wisdom does it want to share? Jennifer believes she knows.
“Be still,” she says. “And keep growing.”
To experience Westcroft Gardens and Farm for yourself, visit westcroftgardens.com or call (734) 676-2444.
“People ask us what we grow now. We grow love.”
In addition to Heritage Gardens, Westcroft Gardens and Farms also features a cherry orchard, lavender garden, pollinator garden, community garden, and a sensory garden for special-needs children and adults. Four acres of Heritage Gardens are available for weddings, and for the ceremony, the Azalea House can accommodate up to a hundred guests.