Selling off the home farm
By Joey Berlin
Originally published 01:48 p.m., November 19, 2007
Updated 01:48 p.m., November 19, 2007
To Bill Hoch, the farmhouse and surrounding land at 1824 Burlingame Road represents a century of family history. The old Hoch Dairy farm, with its two-story house and two-story loft barn, will continue to mean everything to him, even though it’s no longer in the family.
Last month, Hoch sold the farm in the Neosho River Valley, the longtime production center for Hoch Dairy, to local farmer John Waechter. Hoch, who helped his father and grandfather on the farm as a youngster, now works in Kansas City, Mo., as a communications consultant, writer and filmmaker.
He said the demands of his business kept him from devoting the attention to the property that it deserved, leading to the difficult decision to sell it.
“I did not want the place to suffer from inattention or lack of use,” he said. “So I’m very comfortable with my decision, but for me, my home will always be at those 100 acres there on Burlingame Road.”
Waechter, who bought 80 acres of property, likes the land for its quality of ground and location. But he appreciates what the property will always mean to Hoch and told him he could come back anytime.
“We’re leaning toward renting it out,” Waechter said. “We’re trying to keep it together, maybe, because it is kind of a part of history.”
Bill’s grandfather, R.F. Hoch, purchased the property early in the 20th century, cleared the land and started the dairy farm in 1914. Bill’s father, Orville Hoch, was born the next year and became an integral part of the business early in his life. Both men would eventually pass away on the property — R.F. while working in the barn in 1969, Orville in his sleep in 1990.
“He and my grandfather formed a great team,” Bill Hoch said. “My grandfather was a superb farmer, and my dad was a naturally born businessman. The team proved to be a very successful one over the course of several decades.”
Bill, the only child of Orville and wife Olive, began helping on the farm at age 14 — at that time, the age at which he could legally drive a milk truck. When he grew older, he pursued a career in communications, eventually working as a legislative assistant to Sen. Jim Pearson and as press secretary and chief of staff to Kansas Gov. John Carlin.
During the early 1950s, R.F. and Orville decided to sell their dairy herd and focus the farm on processing and distribution.
Bill Hoch said business at Hoch Dairy was “very robust” until about the mid-1970s, when large dairy distributors provided competition that the business soon couldn’t handle. Orville Hoch sold the dairy and retired in 1987.
After Orville’s death in 1990 and Olive’s passing in 1991, Bill had the dairy building razed. In recent years, family friend Gary Pedersen ran the farm for both crop-producing and dairy purposes.
Hoch approached EK Real Estate about selling the land early last spring. Realtor Maurice Schmidt said the farm was never exposed to the market; he contacted Waechter immediately.
“John Waechter was the first and the strongest buyer for the property,” Schmidt said, “as he had a use for the homestead.”
When the time came to close the sale on Oct. 17, Bill requested that it not be done on the farm.
“I just preferred not to have the transaction consummated literally at the property,” Hoch said. “I don’t mind saying that it was a very emotional experience for me. I just wanted the property to pass to John and his family in as businesslike a way as possible.”
A couple of Waechter’s employees have begun working on sprucing up the farm. If the house isn’t rented out, Waechter may sell it.
“We’ve cleaned up quite a bit around there already,” he said. “We’re gonna paint the house, get some things done around the house. The barn needs a few places where the tin is kind of loose, a piece or two off of it. We’re in the process of fixing all that; hope we get that all done here in the next 30 days.”
Hoch is glad Waechter is the new owner, and he appreciates the offer to visit whenever he wants. But he’s not sure he’ll do so anytime soon.
“It took me years of consideration — back and forth, back and forth — what I should do with the property,” he said. “Once I came to that decision, I just found that there was no looking back, and I was going to move ahead.
“It’s going to be a little while before I can go there again.”