By Doug La Rocque
More than 300 people attended the ribbon cutting and open house on Saturday, July 8 for the new “wedding barn” first proposed to the Grafton Planning Board over a year ago.[Private] The brainchild of Brandon McDermott, who was living in his great grandmother’s house at 40 Dunham Reservoir Road, it caught the attention of his mother Jane McDermott, who said she told him, “she wanted in on the idea.”
Clearing land started a year ago on the 85-acre plot, “and together we worked on choosing the barn and the right layout. Brandon even made the custom lighting that is in there. A lot of it is so much work by us, but it was a really important thing to us to be able to keep this family property.”
Beside the barn, designed to hold wedding receptions and other like events in an elegant yet rustic setting, the house on the property has been updated while keeping many of its early 1900 charms. Downstairs it holds a wedding suite and changing rooms for the bride and groom, while upstairs is being renovated into offices.
Early indications are it’s an idea that is being well received. According to McDermott, their business plan called for ten bookings before they opened. She said that as of this date, “we are over 40 bookings, and they have been booking since the trees were still in place, because they could just sense this was going to be a beautiful spot.” Also in attendance was Grafton Town Supervisor Ingrid Gundrum, who told The Eastwick Press, “I have said for a long time that Grafton doesn’t have a lot of business and industry to generate revenue, but what we do have is a whole lot of natural beauty. This absolutely marries the best of Grafton, the old homestead with all its natural surrounding beauty with a nice clean business. It just highlights more of what is great about Grafton and helps put it on the map.”
The venue gets its name from the greywacke rock beds native to the Town, and reason there are two operating quarries on the west side. This particular kind of rock is highly desirable for road construction. The steps leading into the house have been formed from Greywacke, and there are several large rocks decorating the property. For more information, please contact Jane or Brandon at greywackemeadows.com. [/Private]