“It was love at first sight,” gushes Nichole Nilsson. She’s speaking of her first visit to Nixon Farms while planning her September 2013 wedding. “The minute we walked into the barn, we thought this was the place for us. We didn’t want to do a country club wedding, and this was perfect.”
Nixon Farms in Webster Township is one of a handful of relatively new “event barns” in Washtenaw County that host weddings and other major celebrations. The rise of such venues, also called “party barns,” is a coast-to-coast phenomenon reflecting a confluence of social trends. For starters, more couples are looking for nontraditional wedding options. XO Group, a media lifestyle research firm that runs theknot.com and other wedding websites, surveyed 13,000 U.S. brides and grooms in 2013 and found just 33 percent chose to marry in religious institutions, down from 41 percent in 2009. Moreover, Americans are marrying later and paying handsomely to celebrate. Couples who used a professional vendor, the site says, spent an average of almost $30,000 on their weddings. All this attracts entrepreneurs seeking new opportunities and farmers exploring ways to bolster their incomes.
“Fifteen years ago, my father and I farmed 2,500 acres in Dexter and Stockbridge. We used to have 1,200 head of cattle on feedlots,” says Ryan Nixon, owner of Nixon Farms. “Now I have 300 acres, and it’s hard to make money farming.” Nixon has found a variety of ways to generate revenue by opening his farm to the public, including a corn maze, a cow train, duck races, and, most recently, hosting weddings in the family’s 1923 barn.
Local wedding barns charge $4,000 to $8,500 for a single event. “More and more, farmers are doing this,” says Janice Benson of the Michigan Agritourism Association. “We get calls regularly from interested farmers who see how successful these venues are. They help to keep the farm sustainable throughout the year.”
It’s not just longtime farmers like the owners of Nixon Farms and White Oaks Farm who are jumping on the band-wagon. Rural residents have created event barns at Red Tail Farm, Misty Farm, and nearby Misty Valley. Cornman Farms is a farm-to-table, full-service banquet facility that is part of Zingerman’s Community of Businesses. A Dexter businessman and his wife own Cottonwood Barn.
It takes time and money to turn a barn built for livestock into one that can welcome a bridal party. To maintain her pre-Civil War barn’s historic character, Misty Farm owner Kelly Frutig spent around $100,000 to renovate the property’s two barns, incorporating reclaimed wood from other old barns. The long and arduous effort was worth it, she explains, to give the buildings “another 150 years of life.” Kieron Hales of Cornman Farms says the purchase of the forty-two-acre property plus the restoration of the nineteenth-century barn and farmhouse added up to $4.5 million. “Weddings are what pay the mortgage,” he says.
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But all the festivities do not make everyone happy. Neighbors protest the noise, traffic, lights, and disruption associated with the party barns. Officials in Dexter, Scio, and Webster townships all get complaints about event barns. Dance music seems to be the biggest issue. Sound travels far in rural areas with few buildings to block the noise–especially deep, thudding bass notes. Patrick Sloan, principal planner at McKenna Associates and former planning director for Dexter Township, says that noise complaints are followed by “car headlights shining into homes, proximity of partygoers to nearby property lines, and people urinating outside.” Neighbors also object to the increase in traffic and parking congestion.
Some local barn owners are taking steps to mitigate the nuisance factor. Frutig is looking into purchasing specialized sound systems for Misty Farm and her second Scio Township property, Misty Valley, to the tune of $25,000. At Cornman Farms in Dexter Township, “We strictly adhere to the sound ordinance and keep the music below the required level by maintaining it at fifty-five decibels or lower after ten at night,” says Hales. Both PJ Martin at Red Tail Farm and Ryan Nixon turned down the music at their Webster Township venues after people called to complain.
Dexter and Scio townships have detailed procedures for issuing event barn permits and revoking them if there are unresolvable issues. Officials are at peace with their event barns in these two townships. Doug Lewan, managing director of Carlisle Wortman Associates and planning consultant to Scio Township, says that the effort of establishing a conditional use ordinance “has helped to preserve two historic barns [Misty Farm and Misty Valley] that would have fallen apart. It’s worked out well, and few problems have come to the township, just a couple of informal complaints.”
Webster Township’s zoning does not provide specifically for event barns. After many months of deliberation in 2013, Webster’s planning commission and board of trustees both voted against including event barns as a special use. Rob Mitzel, the planning commission chair, says, “We decided we didn’t want an ordinance because it doesn’t fit in with the township; basically these are banquet facilities with noise and traffic.”
Webster proprietors had operated with the understanding that their event barns were secondary to the main function of their property, such as farming or, in the case of Red Tail Farm, use as a single-family residence. But things were different at Cottonwood Barn, Dan and Laura Waitz’s event facility on Farrell Rd.
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With Cottonwood, the Waitzes weren’t just looking to repurpose an old barn on a farm. They were businesspeople whose interest in restoring classic barns dovetailed with their desire to get into a growing industry. They found a 4.6-acre property right around the corner from the Webster township hall and, in July 2012, approached officials about how they might use the property’s dilapidated barn.
“At first Dan said he would have only a few receptions a year,” says zoning administrator Bruce Pindzia. “He asked if he could get permits to do improvements to the interior of the barn.” Pindzia sent a letter authorizing Waitz to “proceed with the concept.”
After township trustees raised questions, Waitz wrote a letter explaining that he wanted to hold events, possibly year round, with up to 200 guests and often with music. Township supervisor John Kingsley reviewed the correspondence and sent Waitz an email in September 2012: “I would not wish for you to close on this property with the feeling that you would be permitted to do as you have purposed without many things being clarified.”
Nevertheless, Waitz closed on the property the following month. In February 2013, he applied for a permit to make repairs and alterations at an estimated cost of $25,000. He says he saw no reason not to. “I told everyone from the beginning what I was going to do. I wasn’t nervous about the purchase because Bruce [Pindzia] and John [Kingsley] said there weren’t any issues.”
But that summer, the township board narrowly defeated the motion that would have permitted party barns as a special use. Meanwhile, the Waitzes’ project was growing exponentially: in September, a revised building permit estimated the cost at $525,000.
Once events started, Kingsley recounts, “The neighbors complained right away. One group of partygoers were so obnoxious, Dan had to kick them out.” People living nearby objected to the noise, lights, and traffic. “The noise level at the barn is ridiculous tonight,” neighbor Jason France wrote in an email to the zoning administrator, Pindzia. “We have a 4-month old in our house and the music is blasting loud enough to wake him up.” The family subsequently sold their home and moved away.
In the fall of 2013, Webster Township and three neighboring families filed a lawsuit against the Waitzes and Cottonwood Barn LLC. Washtenaw County Circuit Court judge Carol Kuhnke ruled in late 2014 that “it is clear that event barn use [at Cottonwood] is a commercial operation that exceeds the residential use of the property” and that the Waitzes were in violation of the zoning ordinance. She ordered them to stop holding events at the barn after December 2014.
The Waitzes are appealing Kuhnke’s decision, a process that can take as long as two years, and requested permission to hold events pending the outcome. Kuhnke ruled in January 2015 that due to the possible “harms to innocent third parties,” referring to couples whose wedding plans were well advanced, the Waitzes could go ahead with events already confirmed for 2015.
In the meantime, the Waitzes have tried to respond to neighbors’ complaints by dimming some lighting and putting new rules in place for dance music. Dan Waitz testified in court that they don’t allow subwoofers and in the future will monitor the music’s decibel level throughout events. Judge Kuhnke further stipulated that music must be turned off by 10 p.m. during the summer and by 9 p.m. after Labor Day.
Kingsley says the legal case has been “very expensive for the township.” According to information provided by the township administrative assistant, Webster has already spent more than $70,000, and it’s not over yet.
Waitz says he has invested almost $1 million in the project so far, and that’s not counting attorneys’ fees. “I don’t have any choice but to fight this to the bitter end.”
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Crafting new policies is challenging because people bristle at rules telling them what they can and cannot do with their land. Zach Michels, planning and zoning director for Dexter Township, looks at it as “private property rights versus your neighbor doing something that will make your life miserable. You don’t want the Taj Mahal built next to you.
“Zoning is a balancing act. You are setting up a framework so people know what to expect. Everyone hates rules until the rules do something you like.”
PJ Martin at Red Tail Farm sees a broader benefit to sensible rules. The question, she says, is “What are we going to do with our rural landscape?
“This is a great place. We need destination spots. We need to find ways so people can enjoy and preserve the properties we have. Let’s tighten things up and decide how we’re going to do this.”
