Echo Hill Orchards & Distillery
! KEITH O’CONNOR NATE BLAIS
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hey wanted to find a new job so that they could spend more time together as a family. He had an idea to make it happen, but she wasn’t so sure about it. His idea eventually came to fruition in 1997 and today Rich and Terry Krupczak are owners of Echo Hill Orchards & Distillery in Monson. “We’ve lived in Monson since 1987 and owned Four Seasons package store in Hadley. It was a 45-minute commute and from the time one of us left in the morning and returned home in the evening the children would be asleep. We didn’t want to miss seeing them grow up and decided that we needed to do something where we would all be together,” said Rich Krupczak. Then one day while driving by Echo Hill, Krupczak saw a large “For Sale” sign offering the farmland for commercial use.
And he knew that was his answer - to purchase the property where the family could work together. “We were familiar with the farm and had brought our young children several times to pick apples. I was amazed at how big it was, offering 21 different varieties of apples, and we got lost among the orchards,” Krupczak laughed. In fact, it was while picking apples one day with their young daughters, Samantha and Ashley, now 30 and 27 respectively, that Rich began to think about purchasing the orchards. Later when he mentioned his idea to Terry, she wasn’t so sure about taking on the responsibility of running a farm, especially since she was pregnant at the time. However, it wasn’t long before Terry could be persuaded by her husband, who felt it would be a great place for their kids to grow up. She also didn’t want to see GOLOCALMAGAZINES.COM 17
