A Southold Cul-de-Sac Braces for 6,000 Hens and a Mystery Owner

Until recently, the end of Jasmine Lane in Southold, Long Island, was a wall of green. The property beyond the cul-de-sac was reforested farmland, protected under a program that guarantees it can be used for nothing but agriculture. This January, neighbors learned that the buyer, who paid $650,000 for the site, had a plan that unnerved them: an organic poultry operation called Rejuvenate Farms, with 6,000 pasture-raised hens roaming among six mobile shelters and a barn for supplies. By spring, the trees were coming down. That account comes from a reporting by Curbed, which traced the fight in detail.

The neighbors, many of whom bought two-story colonials in the early 1990s under a middle-income housing program that capped prices below $100,000, were alarmed. At the first public meeting, resident John Reichert said he could not use his backyard if he had to smell chicken manure all day. Others wrote to the planning board asking for an environmental review of groundwater, runoff and air quality, and one letter pointed to an asthmatic child living close to the site. Some feared the farm would make their homes harder to sell.

The town’s hands, though, were largely tied. Southold has adopted the state’s Right to Farm Law, which protects farmers from undue interference by adjacent landowners. The planning board’s chairman told attendees in January that the town cannot deny an application simply because it is controversial. Planner Mara Cerezo later clarified that the town could weigh in on only two things: traffic impacts and where structures are placed. The fight therefore narrowed to the location of the barn, which sits against the cul-de-sac. In June, Reichert’s daughter spotted temporary coops going up before a permit had been filed and posted a video online. The town quickly issued a stop-work order.

Supporters saw classic NIMBYism. Resident Pat Kelly asked what kind of farm the neighbors would accept, if not pasture-raised hens. Bill Zalakar, executive director of a nonprofit supporting Long Island farmers, called the battle disturbing in a letter comparing it to a dispute over an oyster farm elsewhere in town, and said the public too often fails to recognize that bona fide farms have a right to certain practices.

But how bona fide is the operation? Curbed reports that the land was sold to an LLC registered to a P.O. Box, and the farm’s plans were filed by an LLC with the same address. The group’s authorized representative turned out to be Grant Callahan, a 21-year-old NYU student from Old Westbury who, according to his LinkedIn page, focused on real estate. He spoke at the planning board about organic techniques and protecting the landscape, though he sometimes slipped into saying “we.” Curbed was unable to reach him, and his LinkedIn page has since been stripped of personal details.

That left locals to wonder about the $190,000 down payment, and who else might be involved. Benjamin J. Schwartz, a North Fork attorney, told Curbed he had heard a town planner describe the farm as a “father and son” operation and had seen the name of Grant’s father on a document’s cover page. Curbed notes that Brian Callahan and Grant’s uncle, Adam Manson, were arrested in 2013 over what federal prosecutors called one of the largest Ponzi schemes in Long Island history, a $118 million operation that drew in local investors, including a fire department’s retirement fund. The source text breaks off before detailing what followed.

The backers behind Rejuvenate Farms remain unspecified. What is clear is that a quiet cul-de-sac has become a test of how far right-to-farm protections reach, and who gets to ask questions about the people behind a plan.