Historic barn, modern farm

MECHANICSVILLE, Iowa — The second weekend of September marked this year’s Iowa Barn Tour, with 103 farms participating across the state. Among them was a farm on Iowa’s eastern side that is home to a historic barn built in 1862: Tenley Farms. On the property is Greg’s MilkHouse Market, a direct-to-consumer store.

Tenley Farms and Greg’s MilkHouse Market is owned by Tanner and Lakaya Tenley, who have been operating the storefront since June but selling raw milk since 2023. The market was named for Lakaya’s late father.  

The Tenleys milk 10 cows in the barn that features a flat 6-cow parlor.  

“There’s a lot of memories in our barn, and that’s a huge reason why we saved it,” Tanner said. “My grandpa milked in there, my dad milked in there, and now I am. Hopefully, our kids will carry it on someday.”

With just 10 cows milking now, the barn is less busy than it was during its peak. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Tenley family installed the barn’s first pipeline. That pipeline is still used today.

“It’s always been a stanchion barn setup,” Tanner said. “At its max, my dad and grandpa were milking 70-75 cows. Our milking process is the same as that, but we installed a smaller bulk tank when we decided to use it for our smaller herd.”

Tanner’s grandpa, who had owned the barn since the 1960s, passed away in 2021. In that same year, Tanner moved in and hoped to continue the family tradition of milking cows. But before he could, the old barn needed some restoration.

In 2020, the northern side of the barn was damaged when the farm was struck by a derecho, a widespread, long-lived line of severe thunderstorms that produce straight-line winds over a large area. The derecho hit peak wind gusts estimated as high as 140 mph and damaged an estimated 3.1-3.8 million acres of corn and soybeans in Iowa.

“We had a decision to make,” Lakaya said. “We decided we wanted to fix the barn, and it was finished up in 2022. We had decided that we wanted to milk cows in it, and we wanted to make that investment.”

Lakaya and Tanner applied for a grant to fix the barn and applied for the Iowa Barn Foundation’s Award of Distinction. This program recognizes historic barns that have been restored by their owners.

After the restoration was complete, the Iowa Barn Foundation placed the barn on the all-Iowa barn list, and it became one of 103 stops in the state. Tenley Farms participated in its first state-wide barn tour this past spring.

“We had over 900 people come to our farm that weekend,” Lakaya said. “The Iowa Barn Foundation does an excellent job of marketing, and we’re extremely grateful to be on the list and have people come out and see our barn.”

The barn tour also gave people the opportunity to explore Greg’s MilkHouse Market. The Tenleys took advantage of the Iowa law allowing farms to sell raw milk and started doing so in 2023. Now the store has diversified into selling homegrown beef and pork and uses a refrigerated truck to deliver milk to eastern and central Iowa.

“We both knew that we wanted to continue milking cows,” Lakaya said. “But we didn’t want to live in the fear of one day getting a letter saying we were going to be dropped. We wanted to own our market, and that helps us sleep better knowing the security of our farm is on us.”

The challenge of finding their market was something that both Tanner and Lakaya embraced. Relying heavily on word-of-mouth advertising, as well as social media, Tenley Farms went from feeding and raising 75 calves with its extra milk to distributing all 350 gallons every week.

“We’re meant to do hard things,” Lakaya said. “There’s no middleman; it’s on us. We wanted to go this route because we have the energy to do it. Owning our market and being self-reliant is how we can provide our kids with this life.”

Bringing up children on a dairy farm was important to Tanner and Lakaya, and the raw milk dairy provides them with that opportunity. Prior to the store and milking cows, Lakaya pursued a career off the farm and realized that it was not where she wanted to be.

“I had a corporate career for a couple of years, but it felt like I died inside,” Lakaya said. “There’s something to be said, especially in this day and age, where having a calling is important, and milking cows for us is our dream. When you have a dream, it’s really hard to go back to anything else.”