About LG
Lilly-Gray is always up to something. On any given day you might find her in the kitchen, out in the field, playing with her ducks, going on a photography trip or just hiding from the world in the bubble of her farmstead. Born in Raleigh, she spent a significant amount of time in Eastern North Carolina, primarily on the coast. These early years on and near the ocean had a large influence on her photography, cooking and overall upbringing.
Many know Lilly-Gray for her career in food & wine. Graduating from East Carolina University with a bachelors in Hospitality Management, she went onto working in fine dining as a chef for many years followed by various jobs in the wine industry with her final role as a Cellar Master for a top 100 winery in the world.
In 2016, Lilly-Gray traveled to Oregon to work her first harvest as a cellar assistant in a winery with no more than a 60L hiking backpack and a 6wt fly rod in tow. This departure from North Carolina inspired Lilly-Gray to continue her travels and pursue freelance work for a number of years. Her work took her from Oregon to Seattle, then Florida to the Caribbean and back. All the while, never forgetting her roots in Eastern North Carolina.
Lilly-Gray settled into life in Oregon and spent 8 years making wine, searching the rivers for fly fishing honey holes, enjoying the abundance of seafood of the Pacific Ocean and building her dream farm filled with flowers and critters of all kinds. In 2023, Lilly-Gray made a pivot. It wasn’t one that she planned but one that was necessary in order for her to continue on her farming journey. She shut down her first farm, liquidated what she could and moved. At a cross roads where most people would have just quit farming and moved onto a new career, Lilly-Gray decided she wasn’t done with farming and farming wasn’t done with her.
Lilly-Gray is currently rebuilding her farm from the ground up - she is focusing on building a regenerative and sustainable farm program. Right now, she is raising heritage-breed ducks and chickens as layers, rebuilding soil structure through the use of cover crops, clearing invasive plants, raising a hive of bees, and has three 50’ commercial bed rows for crops. In March 2024, Lilly-Gray launched her crowdfunding campaign to revitalize the farm through a dinner series called “Dinner in the Garden,” that takes place once a month under the full moon.
photo curtesy of: Anna Maynard