Before there were deals, there was the farm.
My father built Paquin Farms from the ground up — hundreds of acres in Edmonson County, Kentucky, carved into something extraordinary through sheer force of vision, grit, and an unrelenting belief that land should be cared for and brought to life. He didn't just build a farm. He built a model for how to steward a place with intention: the fencing ran straight because he cared about the details; the vineyard was planted because he believed in doing something nobody else in the region had done; the log cabin, the gazebo, the pond, the event barn, the welcome center — every structure was a statement about what it means to build something that lasts.
What he instilled in me had nothing to do with real estate as a transaction. It was about land as a living thing — something that deserves respect, long-term thinking, and the courage to invest before anyone else sees the value. That foundation shapes everything I do today: the way I evaluate a site, the way I think about a market, the way I approach a deal not just as an asset but as a place where something real is going to happen.
Every acre I've underwritten, every lease I've negotiated, and every site I've selected carries a little piece of what I learned walking that farm with him.
