Chris Melançon and Stacey Adams are searching for a place between Santa Barbara and Mendocino where a regenerative farm, a learning center, and animal welfare programs can take root together.
A brief introduction
If you're a landowner in California who has been thinking about the future of your place, about who cares for it next and what happens there, we'd like to introduce ourselves. We're Chris and Stacey. We've spent our careers in the work of stewardship: Chris running community farms while channeling science and technology toward ecological land management; Stacey practicing veterinary medicine and caring for the animals people love.
We believe there's a place that doesn't fit neatly into the traditional real estate market: land that its owners want to see used well, not just sold well. If that describes what you're carrying, we hope this page is a useful way to get to know us.
— Chris & Stacey
How we came together
We met in Boulder, Colorado and Santa Barbara, California at a moment when both of our lives were shifting. Chris was finishing a graduate program in sustainable food systems at the University of Colorado, having recently stepped down as Executive Director of Fairview Gardens, one of California's oldest organic farms. Stacey had just sold her share in the companion animal hospital she had co-owned in Boulder for thirteen years, and was working as a relief veterinarian in Santa Barbara, giving herself the space to ask what came next.
What we discovered, over time, was that we'd been walking toward the same place from different directions: Chris through food systems, ecology, and land management; Stacey through animal medicine and the bonds between people and the creatures they care for. We both wanted a life rooted in a particular piece of ground within a supportive community, and we both believed that land, well tended, has more to give than any single enterprise can receive.
This page is our attempt to describe that belief concretely enough that someone might recognize themselves in it.
The two of us
Ecologist · Farmer · Falconer
Chris has spent more than two decades working at the intersection of agriculture, ecology, and community. After founding a technology company focused on monitoring the health of aquatic ecosystems, he co-founded a diversified community farm near the town of Sonoma. He went on to serve as Executive Director of Fairview Gardens, a historic 12-acre urban farm in Santa Barbara, where he led operations, education, and land management. He now works as a consultant in ecology and ecosystem services, focused on soil, water, and biodiversity.
Beyond his professional work, Chris is a licensed master falconer with prior experience with the Sonoma County Bird Rescue Center. He holds direct experience implementing and monetizing conservation easements in both California and Colorado.
Veterinarian · Human-Animal Bond
Stacey is a doctor of veterinary medicine with twenty years of clinical experience caring for companion animals. For thirteen of those years, she co-owned a companion animal hospital in Boulder, Colorado, before selling her share and beginning a new chapter. She currently works as a relief veterinarian in Northern California, providing medical care across a range of clinics, which give her a broad, current view of companion animal health in the region.
She is in the midst of defining what comes next professionally. Working lands and natural ecosystems offer the environment in which her ideas take their most organic shape. At the center of these ideas is a longstanding interest in the bond between humans and animals: the ways that relationship shapes both, and the therapeutic and educational possibilities that open when it's honored. Stacey anticipates partnering with professionals in other domains, including therapists and animal welfare specialists, on programs rooted in fostering and exploring the depths of human-animal bonds.
What we hope to create
We want to organize and lead a team dedicated to sustainable land stewardship. We imagine a thriving ecosystem where plants and animals, human and non-human, offer physical and emotional sustenance for all ages. Not a single-crop farm. Not a single-purpose retreat. A place where people and small enterprises cross-pollinate: where the goats offer the cheese, the cheese feeds the classes, the classes bring the people who come back for the raptor talks, the raptors draw the therapists, and so on. A working landscape with many reasons to exist.
Small-scale, diversified food enterprises chosen for the land, the region, and the realities of soil and water health. Nothing extractive; nothing at a scale that can't be stewarded well. Guided by the principles of agroecology.
What follows is a working list, not a settled one. We're committed to feeding our community well, and we're searching for the version of that work that respects every life form involved.
Education woven into the working life of the farm, both in person and online, serving adults who want practical skills and, where the local community welcomes it, families and kids.
Programs that bring people into contact with the natural world and with each other, drawing on Stacey's veterinary background, Chris's work with raptors, and partnerships with outside practitioners.
A team in formation
Between Chris's years in farming and education and Stacey's two decades in veterinary medicine, we've come to know hundreds of young aspiring farmers, students, and practitioners who are looking for meaningful land to root themselves in. We intend to invite a select few to join us on the land, adding hands, ideas, and energy as the work calls for it.
How we think about land
Land isn't a canvas we paint ourselves onto. It's something we join, already whole, with its own history, its own water, its own neighbors and weather and moods, and our job is to learn it well enough to add something rather than subtract.
Our approach to any land we join begins with listening. What has this place been? What does the soil tell us, what does the water tell us, what does the living community tell us? Chris's consulting work is essentially a practice of listening carefully to land before making decisions about it.
We're also deeply interested in conservation easements as a tool for protecting land in perpetuity. Chris has direct experience implementing and monetizing them in both California and Colorado, and we'd welcome conversations with landowners who see easements as part of their legacy plan.
What we're looking for
We're holding our criteria loosely enough to meet the right place where it is, and firmly enough to know it when we see it. The following is meant to open a conversation rather than close one.
A few images
Let's talk
There's no script for these conversations. A phone call, a coffee, a slow walk across your land. We're grateful for any of them. If it helps, we're comfortable signing NDAs, providing references, and moving at whatever pace suits you.
Or connect with us directly on LinkedIn