Sep 21, 2008

A family business from orchard to storeBy Dan WheatWenatcheeWorld.com

Pateros, WA — Kari Dykes, of Riverside, and her mother Nancy Walters, of Omak, dropped into The Homestead last Monday on their way to Wenatchee and browsed through the gift section.

They bought a baby gift and commented about the nice new store.

They were the kind of customers the Stennes family, third- and fourth-generation tree fruit growers, have been catering to since opening the store in June. It’s named for the homestead their grandfather and great-grandfather Britanus Stennes started more than 100 years ago in a bend of the Methow River, three miles northwest of the tiny town of Methow.

Figuring 250 acres of orchard isn’t enough to support three families, Keith and Deb Stennes and their twin sons and their wives built the new store in Pateros, right across the street from the city park on the Columbia River.

Customers may sit at tables in a loft or deck off the loft and look out over the river as they eat sandwiches fresh from the kitchen or thick gourmet Homestead Creations pizzas. Different dinners soon will be featured twice a week.

Beside organic and conventional fruit, there’s Homestead Organic blend coffee and espresso, 70 loose-leaf teas and homemade River City Fudge. Homemade ice cream and sometimes cobblers and pies are made with orchard fruit. Holiday gift baskets are in the works.

The ice cream case is backed by a 1910 soda fountain bar from a drug store in Nebraska. But other items — old crosscut saws, old milk cans, a wooden picking ladder and parts of a cider press and apple box-making equipment — come from the Stennes homestead.

Daughters-in-law Jen and Robin — married to twins Kevin and Mark, respectively — help Deb with gifts and Jen handles Internet fruit sales. Kevin manages the store and markets up to 30 percent of the orchard fruit. He also manages the supply of fruit to Homemade Baby, the only fresh organic baby food manufacturer in the country, based in Los Angeles, which the Stenneses are partners in. Mark manages the organic and conventional orchards, which are located at the original homestead northwest of Methow and also near Pateros and west of Okanogan. Keith and Deb’s daughter, Kristin Wall, and her family live next to the Pateros orchard.

Keith helps the others as needed and oversees Homestead River Ranch, the family’s 13-lot subdivision and 9-acre park along the Methow River on part of the Pateros orchard property. Fourteen miles up the Methow River, he’s working to put the original homestead orchard and adjoining land into a conservation easement with the Methow Conservancy, restricting future development.

The family has seven employees at The Homestead and 16 year-round orchard employees, with additional workers during fruit harvests.

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