The Battenfelds have been family farmers in this country
for more than one hundred years. The tradition goes back
to a determined patriarch, Conrad Battenfeld, who came to
America from Germany with his wife Elizabeth in the 1880's.

Conrad Battenfeld established his farmstead in New York's fertile
Hudson Valley, the former breadbasket of the American Revolution.
In addition to the local markets, proximity to the Hudson River
and its many sloops and steamboats provided access to markets
downriver in NY City. Like most American farms of that time,
Battenfeld raised fruit, vegetables, livestock, and a family.

Eventually the Battenfeld farm's cash crop was its fruit trees.
Meanwhile, Conrad's sons, Frank and Fred, decided to focus
on raising violets, which were extremely popular at the time.

greenhouse interior - when the violet boom was in full bloom

For years, violets were the most popular flower in America.
Most of the world's violets came from the violet belt in the
mid Hudson Valley. Rhinebeck was the buckle on the belt!

Frank & Fred Battenfeld did very well in violets. Eventually, Frank
left the partnership to invest his earnings in a grocery business,
leaving Fred to expand the farm that would remain in the family.

Fred Battenfeld, gentleman farmer

Following the Second WorldWar, America's great affection for
violets had faded almost as suddenly as it had originally swelled.
The violet bloom boom was over. One after another, the Valley's
many violet growers closed down. For nearly all of them, it was
the sad end of an era. For the Battenfelds, it was the beginning
of another. Fred's son, Dick, decided to pursue raising Anemones
with the same determination that led his father to raise violets.

Four decades later, Dick Battenfeld is still raising
hybrid anemones, and his son, Fred, represents the
fourth generation of the family now presiding over the farm.

Over the past forty years, Battenfeld's has blossomed into
the world's premier developer and harvester of hybrid anemones,
which are carefully selected, hand-picked, and shipped fresh-cut
direct from the farm in wholesale and retail quantities.

Please feel free to use the Typewriter!

or you may telephone us at
845-758-8018

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