The Holcomb’s bought Coon Rock Farm in the Fall of 2004. That was the same year that they also started Zely & Ritz (www.zelyandritz.com), recently named as one of the 20 best Organic restaurants in America by Organic Style Magazine, in partnership with the Agasi’s of Raleigh. Our new restaurant, Eno Restaurant & Market (www.enorestaurantandmarket.com), opens in Durham in the summer of 2008 -- just in time to enjoy the season’s bounty.

Coon Rock Farm has been a continually operating farm for over 120 years.  The 4 room farm house was built around 1880 and you can still see the hand-hewn log timbers that serve as the house foundation. 

Richard and his 4 children moved from Raleigh where Richard was a well-known software entrepreneur to the little house at the farm and have never looked back.  We started small that first year, mainly providing vegetables to Zely & Ritz but now we have over 5 acres of intense vegetable gardens, orchards, and ponds.  The rest of the farm is in a combination of pasture and forest which is used to graze the animals and provide a wonderful habitat for wildlife and native plants.

The name Coon Rock is an old one that comes from a very large rock formation at the property’s edge that juts out into the Eno River.  It’s a landmark that all the ‘old-timers’ in Hillsborough know as many of then grew up swimming and fishing at the Coon Rock.