It is easy for Dominique Kostelac to forget the troubles of his former life as he meanders down the old wagon trail on his 33-acre farm outside Charlottesville. There are the plastic tubes he uses to tap the maple trees for syrup. Here is the island in a forgotten river where he found the remnants of a dugout canoe, which he imagines could be as old as the Indians. This is where the persimmon trees grow so heavy that a shake of the branches releases their bounty.
He moved to Holly Tree Farm five years ago with his wife and three kids when he was still a high-flying real estate developer cashing in on the housing boom. What followed has become an all-too-common story: The bursting of the bubble — and perhaps his own overexuberance — left him millions of dollars in debt and facing foreclosure. Or, as Kostelac puts it, “we did a big face-plant . . . and we were stranded here.”
As it happened, that face-plant was right into some of the most fertile soil in Virginia. A longtime foodie and serial entrepreneur, Kostelac is convinced that his old neighbors in yuppie Washington will pay premium prices for produce and meat from the small farmers who are his new neighbors. Now, in this refuge from his failures in the city, he sees opportunity