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My House

Where family and business blossom

By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF
Published September 24, 2005

[Times photos: Lance Aram Rothstein]

Jewels Halo, a 107-acre former dairy farm in Darby, is home to 11 members of the Faulkner family, as well as their business, the Cornerstone Tree Farm.

	John Faulkner and his wife, Julie, pose with their daughters, Nicole Armas, back left, and Miranda Faulkner in front of Cornerstone Tree Farm's new office. They moved here to escape encroaching development.

DARBY - From the road, Jewels Halo looks like heaven.

Picture it: green pastures, twin blue silos, white three-rail fence, quarter horses grazing, a loafing shed and barns and a scattering of houses. Then the land unlocks itself from the grid of domestication, shakes loose and undulates like the ocean, its vast expanse of green turning to wetland then sky as far as the eye can see - sometimes 30 miles on a clear day.

If you had a ranch, this is what you would want it to look like.

In fact, Jewels Halo doesn't necessarily look like Florida. It could be anywhere: California, Wisconsin, the Great Plains - a place of a movie director's dreams, already written into a true story about ranch life and decades of hard work.

"This is what it is, a lot of work, a lot of time, something we've worked on for years," says John Faulkner, 46, who lives at the ranch with 11 members of his extended family, including two daughters and a son: Miranda, 24, Nicole, 21, and Johnny, 12.

He christened the 107-acre ranch after wife Julie's nickname. "Without sounding too romantic, she's kind of my angel," he says. "That's why I named it after her."

Six years ago, the Faulkner family moved from Land O'Lakes to the property, a former dairy farm that meanders blissfully along Bellamy Brothers Boulevard. John kept the shell of the dairy farm intact, including the old milking rooms, partly because of the farm's beauty and also because it's a landmark to the people of Pasco County. John Faulkner is an equestrian, a serious competitive rider who took up the sport midlife and last year was named Florida's Rookie of the Year for reining. He keeps about eight show horses on the property, all quarter horses. He rides every night for hours, hard and with abandon. Earlier this year, he fell and broke some ribs, the downside to the sport.

His family is his support team, he says, cheering him on at shows around the country. Miranda, known for her culinary skills ("Her chicken enchiladas and coconut cake are delicious," he raves), usually cooks for the crowd - something everyone looks forward to.

But horsemanship is just a hobby.

By vocation, Faulkner and his family are in the nursery and landscape profession. They own the Cornerstone Tree Farm, which supplies trees and shrubs to developments all over west-central Florida.

The business, they say, began in such a humble way it's almost unimaginable. Years ago, they started sweeping acorns from their church parking lot and growing them in pots at their then-small nursery. They paid their children a penny each for every good one ("the really big acorns," Faulkner recalls) until the business began to sprout like their trees.

"From the time they were small, our children learned to pot plants, make cuttings and pull weeds," Faulkner says. "We have worked very, very hard for a long time. And that's what this ranch is all about."

Miranda Faulkner, a computer expert who has been working with her father since she was 16, single-handedly computerized the family business. She says the family moved from their 1-acre nursery in Odessa when Citrus Park Mall was built to a 15-acre tract in Land O'Lakes. After State Road 56 was extended and New Tampa boomed, they moved again.

This time to Darby.

"As everything got more crowded, we kept moving north," she jokes.

John Faulkner says he was attracted to the property because of the amount of land available. "I wanted a piece of property where we could grow and get bigger," he says. "And it was hard to find that much. But because this had been a dairy, the land had already been cleared, which eliminated an additional expense for us."

The Faulkners live in a 5,800-square-foot, five-bedroom, three-bath home with a pool and plenty of room for entertaining, along with a view of the land they love.

Julie Faulkner, 45, a passionate quilter and amateur photographer, worked for years as an interior decorator specializing in model homes. With its pecan floors and ranch-style decor, the house reflects her knack for color and style. The walls are vibrant with colorful, contemporary horse paintings by California artist Jen Raynes. One painting features a nearly life-sized, whimsical cowgirl with red boots and an oversized hat.

"When we decided we were going to move here, the first thing we tried to figure out was where to put the house so we would have the best view," Julie says.

John Faulkner also built a 250- by 150-foot clay dirt riding arena that he hits most nights after work to let off steam. On Friday nights he switches on the bright arena-style lights and invites 20 or 30 friends over to ride. Sometimes he invites clients over to ride or to sit in the rockers in the adjoining picnic pavilion and eat Miranda's smoked ribs. On the Fourth of July, she says, the view is so sweeping that they can see fireworks from festivals miles away.

"And people know where we are, too," Miranda says. "You can see the silos from (Interstate) 75."

Since moving to Jewels Halo, the business has grown exponentially right along with the Florida land boom. The Faulkners have 40 acres in production on the property and recently added a 15-acre nursery down the road. They just built a new office. From the outside, the office looks like an old-fashioned barn; on the inside, it reflects the family's love of modern, ranch-style decorating, with colorful artwork and photography, log-style furniture and a whimsical chair made from a Western saddle.

Workdays kick off before sunrise, John Faulkner says, and typically end more than 10 hours later. A quietly religious man, one who doesn't like to talk much about religion, Faulkner is concerned most with taking care of his family, his employees and their families. He's the kind of guy you can learn lessons from, whose business philosophy ("I learned it with my wallet," he likes to kid) can be applied to the most everyday situations.

Remember, he says, life isn't so much about business as it is about building relationships and doing what you say you're going to do. Always.

"I'm not concerned with what I can acquire, but more with feeding these families and sending their kids to college," he says. "This place takes care of a lot of families, people who have been with me a long time and make their living here."

Elizabeth Bettendorf can be reached at ebettendorf@hotmail.com

[Last modified September 24, 2005, 01:00:22]