Selling a farm or equestrian estate
The buyer for a serious farm is rarely sitting in Tryon waiting for one to list. Hidden Hollow Farm's buyer was in Aiken. Our job is to find that person, and to have the price, the story and the film ready when we do.
Why farms are different
A house in town sells to whoever is already shopping in town. A farm sells to a rider, a breeder, a family or a trainer who may live hundreds of miles away, and who will only make the trip once they believe the property is right. That buyer judges the barn before the kitchen, the footing before the finishes and the trail access before the square footage. If the marketing leads with a bedroom count, they scroll past.
So we sell farms the way they are bought: land first, horses second, house third, and the life around all three.
We walk the property with you, the barn and arena as carefully as the house, and we hear your goals and your timeline. We do not price a farm we have not walked. The analysis and our pricing recommendation follow within about a day, in writing, with the comparable sales attached.
Dividing a farm's price by its acreage tells you nothing. We value the acres that carry the house, barn, arena and pool as one package, then price the remaining land for what it is: fenced pasture, run-in sheds, water, views and trail access. Every part of the number can be explained to a buyer and an appraiser, which is how a record holds.
Thanksgiving Farm and The Hayloft are not addresses. Before a word of copy is written we run the property through the Zillow Buzz Index, Zillow's ranking of more than 600 home features by how much each lifts buyer engagement, and whatever it finds leads the description. The history goes in too, like Carter Brown's 1946 plaque at The Hayloft.
Aerials that show the land, the fencing and the mountains. Twilight exteriors. The barn aisle, the tack room, the arena footing. A cinematic film. Then a website just for that farm, like ownthanksgivingfarm.com and haylofttryon.com, so the link on the sign, the brochure and the press release goes to a page as good as the property.
Debra is active with the Tryon Hounds and owns a farm here, so she is part of the community buyers are moving here to join. Damian runs the paid campaigns and the email to his buyer database. Then there is the Christie's International Real Estate network, which reaches luxury and collector buyers a portal never will.
The Hayloft ran in The Greenville News in July 2026. Within about two days of our first visit, a letter about your property arrives from Gavin Swartzman, President of Christie's International Real Estate. Christie's is an invitation-only network, and that letter is part of how we work. Every farm we take is also submitted to the editors of Christie's International Real Estate magazine.
Some sellers would rather not be public at all. We keep a short list of buyers we call first when something is about to come quietly to the market. Many of our sales never reach a public page.
We pay for the photography, film, print and paid campaign ourselves, before a commission exists, and we never invoice it back at closing. That means an overpriced listing costs us too, so we are honest at the start. Sometimes the answer is that the timing or the number is wrong, and we will say so.
Proof, not promises
$4,625,000, all cash, closed in June 2026, the highest sale recorded for Polk County in the MLS. We held the listing and brought the buyer, who came to Columbus from Aiken.
Records held collectively
Closed sales, not list prices. The full list is in the Seller's Field Guide.
Christie's International Real Estate magazine
The current issue of Christie's International Real Estate magazine, 2026 Volume II, gives six pages to show jumping. "Horse Power," by Eleanore Kelly, calls it "one of the fastest-growing global sports" and follows riders from the Tokyo Olympics to the Longines Global Champions Tour. That reader is the buyer a Tryon farm is for.
The same issue's golf section, "Par excellence," opens with one of our listings. 15 Water View Court at The Cliffs Valley runs as No. 1 of six homes worldwide, with a full page to itself, ahead of homes in Marbella and Naples.
Christie's editors build the featured-property pages from listings that affiliates submit for each volume. We give them what they need to say yes: print-grade photography and film, the details, and a story that fits the issue. Every farm we take is shot to that standard from the start, so when an issue turns to horses, sport or country, your farm is already in front of the editors. Placement is their call, and no property makes every issue, but none gets in without being sent.
Who sees it
Each issue is mailed to selected Christie's clients and set out in Christie's salesrooms in London, New York, Paris, Geneva, Milan, Amsterdam, Zurich, Dubai, Hong Kong and Shanghai. It is displayed at Christie's sales and events and at its partners' events, and placed in five-star hotels, private members' clubs, private jet and airport lounges and marinas, with special placement at events such as Paris Fashion Week and Wimbledon. Online, it runs through Christie's International Real Estate newsletters, its own page on christiesrealestate.com and the brand's social channels.
The readers are high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth: collectors of fine art and, in Christie's words, "proven purchasers of luxury goods." For a farm in Tryon, that is the right room to be in.
Circulation, readership and distribution from the Christie's International Real Estate magazine media kit.
Read the whole method
Our approach to every significant property, from the first visit to the closing table, is set out in The Curated Launch and the Seller's Field Guide. Farms get all of it, plus the things only a farm needs: pricing the land separately from the improvements, photography that shows the fencing and footing, and Debra in the hunt field.
Private conversations
Start with a walk around the property and a conversation. There is no cost and no obligation, and we will tell you plainly what we think it is worth and why.