4 Acres of Rice, Then $10 at the Gate, $350 a Night and $1.2 Million to Live There: 13 Congaree and Penn Lessons Any Farmer Can Steal
In 2014, a pair of newlyweds walked into a four-acre rice paddy on the north side of Jacksonville, Florida, carrying knives about two feet long.
They were not hunting. They were harvesting. By hand. With blades like the ones early American settlers used, in a corner of Florida where rice was grown back in the 1700s.
Rice? In Florida? It sounds crazy. About a century ago, rice was a serious crop in Northeast Florida, but mechanized farms in Louisiana wiped out the local competition and nobody came back. In those early years, reporters described Scott Meyer as the only rice farmer in Florida.
Fast forward to today. That same family land has grown into a 330-acre destination called Congaree and Penn. Visitors pay $10 just to walk through the gate. Diners book tables on a 30-day rolling calendar. Guests pay around $350 a night to sleep in one of a dozen bungalows under the live oaks. Couples pay from $20,000 to take over the entire farm for a wedding. And the farm is now offering eleven 10-acre homesteads on its land, priced from $750,000 to $1.2 million each.
Read that last line again. A farm that started with four acres of a crop nobody thought would grow is now selling people the right to live next to it.
I host paying visitors on my own durian farm, and I have pulled apart dozens of agritourism businesses for this blog. Congaree and Penn is one of the cleverest I have ever studied. Not because the Meyers had more money or more land than you. Because of the order they built things in, and the way every new piece sold the next one.
This is the long version. Grab a coffee. By the end you will have 13 lessons you can lift straight off their farm and drop onto yours, an honest look at what critics say they get wrong, and a 90-day plan for doing a small version of this on a small farm.
What you will learn in this case study ✅ How a four-acre rice experiment became a 330-acre destination with more than 25 ways to earn ✅ Why chefs, not advertising, built the brand (and how to get chefs on your side) ✅ The "price ladder" that runs from a $5 farm pass to a $1.2 million homestead ✅ The house rules that quietly protect their margins and their sanity ✅ What a respected food critic and online reviewers say they get wrong ✅ A scaled-down playbook and a 90-day plan for a small farm |
Congaree and Penn at a Glance
Fact | Detail |
Location | 11830 Old Kings Road, north Jacksonville, Florida (about 12 miles from downtown) |
Founded | 2014, by husband-and-wife team Scott and Lindsay Meyer |
Land | 330 acres today. It began on a 180-acre family farm that had been run as a landscape tree nursery |
First crop | Jupiter, a medium-grain rice, harvested by hand in year one |
Signature crop | Mayhaw, a tart native fruit, with an orchard of about 5,000 trees |
What visitors pay for | Farm passes, u-pick, wagon rides, sunset cruises, animal meet-and-greets, tours, field trips, events, dining, overnight stays, weddings and photo shoots |
Dining | The Roost (open-air, opened June 2026). High Horse, a fine-dining room in the renovated Quonset hut, is planned for this winter |
Overnight stays | The Hammock: a dozen bungalows set in the farm's oak hammock |
Real estate | The Eleven: eleven 10-acre homesteads from $750,000 to $1.2 million |
Other businesses | Farm Cider (hard cider), online and on-farm shops, wholesale, and C+P Outdoor Design, a landscape design-build firm |
Reputation | 4.6 stars from 839 Google reviews at the time of writing, plus coverage in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Food & Wine and Garden & Gun |
Why This Farm Matters to You Right Now
Before we get into the lessons, look at the bigger picture. According to the USDA's Economic Research Service, U.S. farms and ranches earned $1.26 billion from agritourism in 2022, up 12.4 percent from 2017 after adjusting for inflation. More than half of all U.S. counties reported some agritourism income, and the median county took in about $161,000.
Here is the twist most farmers miss. The number of farms doing agritourism actually fell. The 2022 Census of Agriculture counted 28,617 agritourism and recreation operations, down from a peak of 33,161 in 2012. Fewer farms, more money. The winners are getting bigger, and the farms that dabble are quietly dropping out.
USDA researchers also found that farms in more populated counties tend to earn more from agritourism, as do farms growing grapes, fruit and tree nuts, and farms near natural amenities. Congaree and Penn ticks every box. It sits 20 minutes from downtown Jacksonville, it grows fruit and vines, and it has a river, cypress trees, beaver dams and enough birdlife to keep birdwatchers busy all day.
You may not have all three. But you can copy the thinking. For the full breakdown of which farms make real money, read my analysis of whether agritourism is profitable.
The Origin Story: A Tree Nursery, a Wedding Year and a Very Unlikely Crop
Scott Meyer was born and raised in Jacksonville. He studied environmental science at Texas Christian University, earned a master's degree in aquaculture at the University of Miami, and worked as a field biologist in Wyoming. Lindsay grew up on her family's farm in New Mexico, which grew cotton, corn, alfalfa, Hatch chiles and melons. She studied graphic design, advertising and public relations, and worked as a freelance designer.
They married in 2014. That same year, Scott's father offered to let them redevelop a 180-acre farm he had run as a landscape tree nursery. The original plan was not agritourism at all. Scott wanted a small closed-loop system: a sustainable fish farm whose waste would fertilize rice, and the rice would be brewed into sake. He researched varieties similar to the Calrose rice that California brewers use for sake, and landed on Jupiter.
Then something unexpected happened. Chefs found out. Restaurants wanted the rice for the plate, not for the bottle. The plan changed, and the farm followed the demand.
Even the name carries a story. Congaree comes from the USS Congaree, a Navy ship Scott's grandfather captained in World War II. Penn comes from his mother's name. A farm name with a grandfather, a warship and a mother inside it is a name people repeat.
Notice the pattern in that timeline. They never built the next thing until the last thing had created an audience for it. Rice built a following among chefs. Chefs built press. Press built visitors. Visitors built a restaurant. The restaurant and events built demand for overnight stays. And the whole experience built enough desire that people will now pay seven figures to live there.
That order is the real secret. Now let's break it into lessons you can use.
Lesson 1: Grow What Your Land Wants to Grow, Not What Looks Good in a Brochure
Over the years, plenty of chefs told Scott he should grow black rice, or an Italian grain like farro. He said no. He kept growing Jupiter because it grew well in his soil and climate without a pile of extra inputs. He explained his vision to TCU Magazine as growing crops that naturally thrive, "where you're not fighting a battle you're never going to win."
The same thinking shaped their second crop. The mayhaw is native to the swamps of the Gulf states. Instead of fighting the climate with an exotic fruit, they grafted high-yield Louisiana mayhaw cuttings onto Florida rootstock in 2016 and created trees suited to their own ground. Later plantings followed the same rule: muscadine grapes, Ouachita blackberries, figs, olives, pecans, persimmons and mulberries. Southern crops that like Southern weather.
This matters more for agritourism than most farmers realize. Every crop you fight costs you money, labor and stress, and stressed farmers make terrible hosts. A crop that grows easily gives you the time and margin to build the visitor side of the business.
On my own farm, visitors come for durians, the crop our land grows best, not the one I wished it grew. Your hero is probably already in your fields.
Steal this: the Easy-Crop Test 1. Which crop on your farm needs the fewest inputs per acre? 2. Which crop do local cooks, bakers or brewers already ask you about? 3. Which crop has a story attached (history, family, heritage or rarity)? The crop that scores on two or three of these is your best candidate to build a visitor experience around. |
Lesson 2: Let Chefs Build Your Brand Before You Spend a Dollar on Ads
Here is the part of the story most people skip. Congaree and Penn did not start with tourists. It started with restaurants.
By 2016, Jacksonville's public radio station WJCT was reporting that the farm had found huge success in its first two years, mainly by selling rice to local restaurants such as Taverna, Orsay, Moxie Kitchen and Black Sheep. Chefs loved a milling technique that deliberately cracks the grain so it soaks up more flavor, which makes it great for risotto.
The farm stores its rice in the hull and mills it to order, to each chef's specification. Some chefs want it barely polished. Others want classic white rice. Fresh milling keeps the aromatics that chefs cannot get from a supermarket sack.
And the chefs pay for it. Scott told TCU Magazine his rice costs about five times more than basic white rice. Edouardo Jordan, the James Beard Foundation's Best Chef: Northwest in 2018, was willing to pay $5 to $6 a pound for specialty rice like theirs for his Seattle restaurant JuneBaby. Lindsay has openly credited the farm's chefs with carrying it.
Then the press followed the chefs. Congaree and Penn has been covered by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Food & Wine and Garden & Gun. No ad budget buys that.
Why does this work so well? Because a chef's menu is an endorsement printed in front of thousands of diners every week. When a respected restaurant writes your farm's name next to a dish, it is telling every customer, "We trust these people." Journalists read menus. Food lovers read menus. And those food lovers become your first visitors.
Steal this: the 10-Chef Pitch Pick 10 chef-owned restaurants within an hour of your farm. Bring a free sample of your best product, cut or milled or picked the way they want it. Ask one question: "If I could supply this every week, would you put our farm's name on the menu?" Then invite the chefs who say yes to cook a collaboration dinner on your farm. |
Congaree and Penn did exactly that kind of collaboration for years with sold-out farm dinners. If you want to run your own, here is my guide to hosting farm-to-table dinners that showcase your produce, and a step-by-step on partnering with local businesses to bring in visitors.
Lesson 3: Marry the Grower With a Storyteller
Scott is the grower. Lindsay, by her own account, fell into the branding and marketing role, and her training in graphic design, advertising and PR paid off in ways nobody planned. A farm that grows food, processes food, sells food, runs tours and keeps a website needs a lot of design work. She did it.
You can see her fingerprints everywhere. The rice that once went out in plain brown paper bags now ships in muslin bags with screen-printed logos. The farm has a mascot, the guinea fowl, chattering around the grounds. There is a newsletter. There is an Instagram account that announces every new season with playful copy. And in May 2019 the farm hosted an open house for social media influencers under its Quonset hut, complete with a chef introduction and farm food.
Even the humble by-product got a story. When rice is milled, some grains break. Those broken bits, called middlins, were once known as a poor person's food in the old South. Congaree and Penn bags and sells them as a chef ingredient, with the history attached. A former culinary director described the job as selling a story while preserving and celebrating the Northeast Florida landscape.
Most farms have a grower. Very few have a storyteller. If you are the grower, either become the storyteller or recruit one. A family member, a local design student, a part-time marketer. The story is not decoration. It is the reason people drive past ten other farms to reach yours.
Start with why sharing your farm story is essential, then read what actually works on Instagram for agritourism.
Lesson 4: Find a "Hero Crop" Nobody Else Has
Mention mayhaws to an older Southern cook and you may hear about homemade jelly from their childhood. The fruit is tart, about the size of a cranberry, and ripens in late April and early May, which is where the name comes from. It grows wild in Southern swamps, but almost nobody had turned it into a serious orchard crop. A farm partner told WJCT they saw great potential precisely because the fruit had never really been commercialized.
So the Meyers planted about 5,000 mayhaw trees across a dozen varieties. The farm describes its orchard as the largest, and youngest, mayhaw orchard in the world. Whether or not anyone could ever check that claim, look at what it does. It gives the farm something no competitor can copy quickly, because a mayhaw orchard takes years to establish.
A hero crop gives you three things:
A monopoly on a story. Nobody can compare your mayhaw jelly to the supermarket version because there is no supermarket version.
A media hook. Local food magazines wrote about a "mayhaw revival." Journalists love a forgotten crop making a comeback.
Product range. From one fruit came mayhaw jelly, a mayhaw shrub (a drinking vinegar that dates back to Colonial times), mayhaw cider and mayhaw cocktails.
There is a second reason they diversified. Florida weather is brutal. TCU Magazine reported that humidity, rain, flooding and two hurricanes in two years pushed the Meyers to hedge their bets with more crops. Every new crop also became a new reason to visit: u-pick blackberries in one season, muscadine grape picking in another, mayhaws in spring.
Your hero crop does not have to be rare worldwide. It only has to be rare within a two-hour drive. That is how you build what I call a signature experience people line up for.
Lesson 5: Turn Perishables Into Products That Wait for You
Fresh fruit rots. Jelly, shrubs and cider wait patiently on a shelf until a customer arrives.
Congaree and Penn understood this early. In 2016, before its own orchards were mature, the farm began juicing seasonal fruit from other local farms to make shrubs. It did not wait for perfect conditions. It borrowed raw material and built the brand while its trees grew up.
The product line kept growing: rice, grits, middlins, fish-fry seasoning, jellies, honey and pecan oil. Then came Farm Cider. The farm's cider uses a base of apple cider blended with fruit grown on the farm, including mayhaw, figs, Ouachita blackberries and gallberry honey. Scott even made one batch with a rare yellow-fleshed heirloom watermelon from his father's farm in Georgia and called it "hands down the best cider we've ever made."
The cider is poured at the farm, sold by the flight, canned, and sometimes found on tap at bars around Jacksonville. Every can that leaves the farm is a small billboard pointing back to it.
Notice the quiet genius here. The rice program combined the farm's own paddies with rice grown by Scott's cousin in Louisiana, all milled at Congaree and Penn. Together they produced roughly 100,000 pounds of rice a year. Shrubs used fruit from local farms. A favorite cider used watermelon from a family farm in Georgia. Partnerships let the brand grow faster than the acreage.
Two cautions before you copy this. Alcohol and processed foods come with licensing and labeling rules, so check your state's requirements first. And be open about sourcing. Customers forgive partnerships. They do not forgive feeling misled.
For product ideas, read how to sell preserves, jams and jellies through agritourism and creating unique farm products to boost revenue.
Lesson 6: Put a Price on the Gate (and Make Dining Cheaper Than Wandering)
Here is where Congaree and Penn does something many farmers are scared to do. It charges people to walk in.
Farm pass | Price |
Adults and children 12+ (no reservation) | $10 |
Children ages 2 to 11 | $5 |
Seniors 65+ and military (with ID) | $8 |
Any guest with an advance dining reservation | $5 |
Guests on a booked agritourism experience | Included |
Dogs | Free |
The rules around the pass are just as interesting as the prices. Passes are sold only on arrival, never in advance. They are valid for one day. There are no seasonal or annual passes. They are rain or shine, nonrefundable and nontransferable. Outside food and drink are not allowed, so anyone who wants to eat makes a reservation. Prices go up on special event nights. At the December Luminaria, when paper lanterns light the paths, entry in 2025 was $10 with a dining reservation and $20 without.
A gate fee does three jobs at once:
It filters. A person who pays $10 behaves like a guest, not a trespasser.
It funds. Mowing, trails, animal care and fence repairs get paid every single day.
It funnels. The $5 discount for diners nudges visitors toward the higher-value purchase, a meal.
Do the math. Imagine 300 visitors on a fall Saturday at a blended $8 each. That is $2,400 at the gate before anyone buys a meal, a cider or a jar of jelly. The farm pass also powers the event nights. "Fall on the Farm Grounds" evenings combine live music, a pop-up bar and a food truck, and the entry price is simply the cost of a farm pass. The food truck brings its own kitchen and staff. The farm sells the drinks.
One more thing that helps Florida farms charge with confidence. Florida law limits an agritourism operator's liability for the inherent risks of agritourism activities, as long as the required warning sign is posted at the entrance and at the activity sites. Every state is different, so read my 50-state guide to agritourism laws, warning signs and liability acts and talk to a lawyer and an insurer before you open the gate.
If you are nervous about pricing, start with the best way to set entry fees and ticket pricing for agritourism.
Lesson 7: Build a Ladder of Offers From $5 to $1.2 Million
Count the ways a visitor can spend money at Congaree and Penn and you pass 25 before you run out: shops, Farm Cider, gift cards, farm passes, golf carts, wagon rides, sunset cruises, animal and horse experiences, equine boarding, u-pick, tours, field trips, dining, chef's tastings, bungalows, live music, the pumpkin patch, holiday events, private parties, weddings, photo passes, wholesale, landscape design and homesteads.
That list looks chaotic until you line the prices up. Then it looks like a staircase.
Every rung does two jobs. It earns money on its own, and it shows the visitor the next rung up. The $10 visitor walks past the bungalows on the way to the goats. The bungalow guest wakes up on a working farm and starts to wonder what it would be like to live there. The wedding guest goes home and books a dinner. This is how you grow revenue without needing a flood of new visitors every year.
You do not need 25 offers. You need a ladder with no missing rungs. Most small farms have a bottom rung (a cheap visit) and nothing above it, so their best customers have nowhere to spend more. Read upsells that double your agritourism revenue without more visitors and fill in your missing rungs.
Lesson 8: Make the Restaurant Your Engine, but Keep the Promise Honest
For years, the heart of Congaree and Penn was a corrugated steel Quonset hut. By 2018 it housed a working cidery and event space, and later the restaurant. Dinner was positioned for adults, with an elevated Southern menu, a cidery on tap and a chef's tasting menu served at a private table tucked into the grapevines. Reservations on Resy open on a 30-day rolling basis for parties of up to 12. The restaurant holds a 4.6-star average from 839 Google reviews, with a typical spend of $20 to $80 per person.
In 2026 the farm made a bold move. The Quonset hut served its last dinner on June 14. Five days later, on June 19, the farm opened The Roost, a casual open-air restaurant with an all-day seasonal menu. Meanwhile, the hut is being rebuilt as a fully enclosed, temperature-controlled fine-dining room called High Horse, planned to open this winter.
Look at what that does. The Roost is the affordable front door: a $10 pimento cheese starter, a farmhouse burger, cider flights and even juice boxes on the menu. High Horse will be the special-occasion room. Two price points, two audiences, one farm. And an enclosed, air-conditioned dining room in Florida means the farm no longer lives at the mercy of summer heat and storms.
Now the honest part, because this is where many farm restaurants get into trouble. When Hanna Raskin, publisher of the James Beard Award-winning newsletter The Food Section, reviewed The Roost for Jacksonville Today in July 2026, she praised the setting and the slow-cooked lima beans but found several dishes leaned too sweet. Her server also explained that serving food at scale meant only the squash and the rice on the menu actually came from the farm itself.
That is not a scandal. It is reality. A restaurant serving hundreds of covers cannot run on one farm's harvest. Congaree and Penn describes The Roost's menu as sourced from its own farm, farm partners and artisan purveyors, which is honest wording you can defend. The lesson for you: never promise "everything on your plate grew here" unless it truly did. Promise what you can prove.
For more on this, read how reviews turn small farms into tourist destinations.
Lesson 9: Rent the Scenery, Not Just the Food
Every beautiful farm has the same problem. Photographers show up, use your fields as a free studio, and leave. Congaree and Penn turned that problem into a revenue line.
Anyone planning a staged photo shoot needs a photography pass and a site fee, whether the photographer is paid or not. The farm explains its reasoning plainly: it is a private property and a business, not a public park. Here is how the pricing works:
$150 for an individual or family shoot of up to 90 minutes, including farm passes for up to six guests.
$500 for a photographer running multiple mini sessions over up to three hours.
From $500 for commercial and styled shoots, approved case by case.
Wedding photos are reserved for couples who actually marry at the farm.
Then come the events. This is where the scenery pays the most.
Venue | Guests | Price |
The Grapevines (private dining) | Up to 30 seated | $250 venue fee + $1,000 food and drink minimum |
The Roost | Up to 80 seated, 100 standing | From $1,500 weekdays, $2,000 weekends |
Wedding ceremony site | Up to 80 seated | $1,500 to $2,000 |
The whole farm | 100+ | From $20,000, including High Horse, The Roost, the Grapevines, The Hammock and the farm grounds |
Look closely at what the farm refuses to do. It does not coordinate weddings. Couples must hire a professional event coordinator from the farm's approved vendor list. The farm focuses only on the space, the food and the drinks. Music cannot exceed 75 decibels, subwoofers are not allowed, and confetti, glitter and balloons are banned. Those rules protect the animals, the neighbors, the overnight guests and the staff, and they keep the farm doing only what it does well.
Thinking about weddings? Read farm wedding venue zoning: can you host weddings on agricultural land? before you spend a cent.
Lesson 10: Add Beds, and Day-Trippers Become High-Value Guests
A day visitor might spend $10 at the gate and $40 on lunch. An overnight guest spends on a room, two dinners, drinks, a golf cart, activities and often a bottle of cider to take home. That is why Congaree and Penn built The Hammock: a dozen bright bungalows tucked under the farm's live oaks.
Most bungalows are around 400 square feet, with king beds and big windows facing the farm. The smallest, the Nook, is 205 square feet. The nightly rate includes access to the farm grounds, bicycles, fishing gear and rowboats, breakfast staples and a Nespresso machine. Dinner, golf cart rentals, activities and the mini bar cost extra. Jacksonville Today put the rate at about $350 a night.
The details are where this gets smart:
Check-in is Thursday to Sunday, the same days the restaurant serves dinner. Every guest is a likely dinner reservation.
A porter collects guests by golf cart from the parking lot. No guest cars on the farm grounds, so the farm stays peaceful.
No televisions. The farm encourages guests to disconnect, which saves money and sells the experience.
Dogs are welcome in two bungalows for $75 per dog per stay.
Group rates start at six bungalows. That is a wedding block waiting to happen.
Promotions fill soft weekends, like a 20 percent discount code offered for a Labor Day stay.
What could a dozen bungalows earn? Here is a simple illustration. It is not Congaree and Penn's reported revenue, just the math of 12 rooms at roughly $350 a night.
Even at 30 percent occupancy, that is room revenue in the high six figures before a single dinner is sold. You do not need 12 bungalows to benefit. One well-designed cabin can change a small farm's finances. Read how simple cabins can outperform luxury farm stays and why most farm stays are undercharging.
Lesson 11: Fill the Calendar So the Farm Never Goes Quiet
A farm with one big season has one big problem: eleven quiet months. Congaree and Penn gives people a reason to come back in every season.
The event formula is often surprisingly simple. A farm pass, a local musician, a pop-up bar and a food truck. Low labor, low risk, and every visitor walks past the shop, the restaurant and the bungalows. Bigger tentpoles like the pumpkin patch from late September to the start of November and the Luminaria lantern night in December pull in families and couples who might never come for a regular Saturday.
Each event also creates fresh photos for social media and a fresh reason for the newsletter to land in people's inboxes. The calendar is the marketing plan.
For 30 more ideas with real ticket prices, see my list of farm event ideas by season.
Lesson 12: Write House Rules That Protect Your Margin
Most farmers write rules after something goes wrong. Congaree and Penn writes rules that shape who comes and how they behave. Read their policies and you will find a masterclass in quiet positioning:
Farm passes are not sold in advance and are nonrefundable. No refunds to process, no rain-day arguments.
No outside food or drinks. Visitors who want to eat book a table.
Dinner is aimed at adults and there is no children's menu. The bungalows recommend guests be at least 10 years old. The farm openly says it is not specifically geared toward children.
A strict bungalow cancellation policy. Cancel 31 days or more ahead and you get a voucher for the deposit, minus a $100 fee. Inside 30 days, the deposit is forfeited. Guests are told to buy travel insurance.
Weddings must use a professional coordinator. The farm does not get dragged into running timelines.
Leashed dogs are welcome, kept away from the farm's birds. A pet-friendly policy wins loyal dog owners without risking the animals.
Honest warnings. The website tells guests that ants, bees, mosquitoes and uneven terrain are part of the deal.
Rules like these do something powerful. They tell the right customer, "this place is for you," and the wrong customer, "maybe not." That saves your staff from hundreds of small decisions every week and protects the experience for the people paying the most.
Will some people grumble? Yes. Some online reviewers have said the farm pass is only worth it if you have time to explore. That is fine. A farm that tries to please everyone ends up exhausted and underpaid. If visitors are wearing you out, read the simple system that lets you host guests without ruining your farm.
Lesson 13: The Endgame. The Farm Makes the Land Worth More
This is the lesson that made me sit up when I researched this farm.
Congaree and Penn is now offering The Eleven: eleven 10-acre homesteads on the farm, priced from $750,000 to $1,200,000 each. The farm's own pitch is three words long: "Not lots. Claims." Buyers are not sold a plot in a subdivision. They are invited to become part of a working farm, with orchards, meadows, trails and a farm-to-table restaurant on their doorstep. The farm promises there will only ever be eleven.
The homes are designed under the farm's own architectural guidelines, which call for an agrarian style with deep porches and natural materials. Buyers choose from a curated group of architects, builders and interior designers. Custom builds typically take 18 to 24 months. The lots are agricultural in nature and designed to support horses, chickens and other livestock. Landscaping comes from the family's own design-build firm, C+P Outdoor Design, which specializes in mature tree installation. Fitting for land that began as a tree nursery, the farm was already selling landscape trees back in 2019.
Now do the math. Eleven homesteads at $750,000 each is $8.25 million. At $1.2 million each, it is $13.2 million. That is the asking value of about 110 acres, roughly a third of the farm. To be clear, that is gross list value, not profit. Roads, utilities, permits, legal work and sales costs all come out of it, and lots still have to sell.
But think about why a buyer would pay that. A real estate developer would have to spend millions building a restaurant, trails, events, a brand and a community to make raw land feel this special. Congaree and Penn already has all of it, and every piece of it already earns money on its own. The farm is the amenity. Ten years of agritourism turned the land itself into the most valuable product on the farm.
This also matters for the future of farmland. Jacksonville Today reported this month that since a fast-track Florida law took effect in July, at least 17 landowners have filed applications to turn more than 9,400 acres of farmland into subdivisions. Congaree and Penn shows a different path: keep the farm at the center, sell fewer, larger homesteads, and make the working farm the reason people want to live there.
A word of caution. Selling land is the most complex and least reversible move in this entire article. It involves zoning, permits, capital, lawyers and long timelines. Do not touch this rung until the lower rungs are strong. For most farmers, the takeaway is not "sell lots." It is this: every year you run great agritourism, you are building value in your land that a spreadsheet of crop yields will never show.
What Congaree and Penn Gets Wrong (and What You Should Watch)
No farm is perfect, and you learn as much from the cracks as from the polish. Here is what critics, reviewers and the farm's own policies reveal:
The farm-to-table gap. As the Jacksonville Today review showed, a high-volume restaurant cannot run only on its own farm's crops. If your marketing says "grown here," make sure your plate can back it up.
Sourcing questions. The rice program combined the farm's own paddies with rice grown by a cousin in Louisiana, all milled at the farm. TCU Magazine reported this openly, yet some online commenters still questioned how much of the rice was grown on the farm. The lesson: put your sourcing story on your own website before someone else tells it for you.
Fee fatigue. Some visitors feel the farm pass is only good value if they have time to spare. Clear signs and maps help people get their money's worth.
Accessibility. Beyond the shop and dining areas, the terrain is uneven, and the farm says it is still working on an ADA-accessible bungalow. That is an audience you may be able to serve better.
Not for every family. Adult-focused dining and stays are a deliberate choice. It sharpens the brand but leaves family money on the table, which a different farm could happily collect.
Complexity. More than 25 offers takes a big team and strong systems. In 2019 the farm ran on a staff of around 15. Do not copy the whole menu at once.
The Congaree and Penn Playbook for a Small Farm
You do not need 330 acres, a restaurant or a real estate broker to use this playbook. You need the order. Here is how I would scale it down for a small farm.
Congaree and Penn did this | Your small-farm version | Effort |
Sold Jupiter rice to top chefs | Sell your easiest crop to three local chefs and ask for your farm's name on the menu | Low |
Planted 5,000 mayhaw trees | Choose one unusual crop or variety with a story and make it your hero | Low to medium |
Charges $5 to $10 at the gate | Charge a small farm pass on open days, with a discount for anyone who buys food | Low |
Fall on the Farm Grounds evenings | One evening a month: a local musician plus a food truck | Low |
Photography passes at $150 to $500 | A photo session fee with a simple online booking link | Low |
Shrubs and Farm Cider | One shelf-stable product, like jam, shrub or a dry rub, made under the right license | Medium |
The Hammock's 12 bungalows | One cabin, tiny house or glamping tent | Medium to high |
Weddings and whole-farm buyouts | Small ceremonies, birthday dinners and private parties | Medium |
The Eleven homesteads | Long-term land value: easements, leases or land planning with professional advice | High |
Your 90-day plan Days 1 to 30: Run the Easy-Crop Test, pick your hero crop, write your farm's origin story in 300 words, and start a simple email newsletter. Days 31 to 60: Pitch 10 chefs, set your farm pass price and house rules, post your state's agritourism warning sign, and check your insurance. Days 61 to 90: Launch one paid experience and one monthly evening event, add a photo session fee, and sketch your next rung (a product or a single cabin). |
If budget is your worry, read you don't need $100,000 to start agritourism and how small farms can make their first $1,000 from visitors.
Frequently Asked Questions About Congaree and Penn
Who owns Congaree and Penn?
Congaree and Penn is owned and run by husband-and-wife team Scott and Lindsay Meyer. They founded it in 2014 on family land in north Jacksonville that had been run as a landscape tree nursery.
Where is Congaree and Penn?
The farm is at 11830 Old Kings Road in Jacksonville, Florida, on the north side of the city. It is about 20 minutes from Jacksonville International Airport and from downtown.
How much is a farm pass at Congaree and Penn?
Farm passes are $10 for guests 12 and older, $5 for children ages 2 to 11, and $8 for seniors and military with ID. Guests with an advance dining reservation pay $5, agritourism bookings include the pass, and rates are higher on special event nights. Passes are sold on arrival only.
What does Congaree and Penn grow?
The farm is known for Jupiter rice and mayhaws. It also grows muscadine grapes, blackberries, figs, olives and pecans, and keeps bees, horses, goats, zebus, emus, chickens, ducks and guinea fowl.
Can you stay overnight at Congaree and Penn?
Yes. The Hammock offers a dozen bungalows on the farm, with check-in from Thursday to Sunday. Rates are seasonal and include access to the farm grounds, bicycles, fishing gear and rowboats.
What is The Eleven at Congaree and Penn?
The Eleven is a collection of eleven 10-acre homesteads on the farm, offered between $750,000 and $1.2 million each. Homes are custom built by a curated group of architects and builders under the farm's agrarian design guidelines.
What is a mayhaw?
A mayhaw is a small, tart fruit, about the size of a cranberry, that grows wild in the swamps of the American South and ripens in late April and May. It is traditionally made into jelly, and Congaree and Penn also uses it for shrubs and cider.
Your Next Step: Find Your Farm's First Rung
The Meyers did not start with bungalows, a restaurant or million-dollar homesteads. They started with four acres and one smart crop, and they built each next step only after the last one had earned it.
The hardest part for most farmers is not working hard. It is knowing which step to take first on their own farm. Build the wrong thing first and you can burn years and savings on an idea your land, your location or your market was never going to support.
That is exactly why I built the Farm Readiness Quiz. In a few minutes it shows you which parts of your farm are ready for visitors and which ones to fix first, so you don't waste money building the wrong thing.
Then grab my free ebook, the 21-Point Agritourism Blueprint. It is my Agritourism Starter Checklist: 21 points to work through before you welcome your first paying visitor, so you open your gate with confidence instead of guesswork.
Want more case studies like this one? Read how Farmer Copleys grew to 8,000 visitors a day, how Carter Mountain Orchard gets visitors to pay $10 at the gate, and how The Newt in Somerset built an ultra-luxury agritourism empire.
Written by Stephen Loke of AgritourismSuccess.com, whose farm is featured in Bloomberg News and Asahi Shimbun. Photos courtesy of Congaree and Penn, shared under the farm's media-assets policy. This article is for education only and is not legal, tax or financial advice. Prices and offerings were checked in October 2026 and may change.
Sources
TCU Magazine: Scott and Lindsay Meyer rely on history and social media at rice farm (2020)
WJCT: Jacksonville rice farm a nod to the region's past (2016)
Fort Worth Magazine: TCU grad brings rice farming back to Florida
Flamingo Magazine: The Spread, Congaree and Penn Farm (2017)
Edible Northeast Florida: 2016 Local Food Hero, Congaree and Penn
Edible Northeast Florida: How local cider makers are making cider in Florida
Edible Northeast Florida: Congaree and Penn Farm guide (2018)
The Jaxson: Congaree and Penn bringing agrotourism to Jacksonville (2019)
Jacksonville Today: Review of The Roost at Congaree and Penn (July 2026)
What Now Jacksonville: Congaree and Penn launches The Roost during Quonset hut remodel (2026)
USDA Economic Research Service: 2022 Census of Agriculture agritourism income
High Plains Journal: Agritourism operations in the 2022 Census of Agriculture
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