A 236-acre Maple Farm
Filled to the Brim with Histor

The Maple Lodge began producing maple syrup on a small scale not long after its construction in the early 1880s and ceased production when the property was purchased by a local coal company around the turn of the 20th century.

No syrup was made during the 1900s as the Lodge was only used seasonally by its various owners.

The Wnek’s became the proud new owners of the 58-acre Maple Lodge property.

Though we always wanted a farm-based business, maple syrup production was never on our radar. Julie was raised showing horses and goats, while I showed pigs and worked on a couple of local dairy farms. It wasn’t until Julie’s Great Uncle Andy stopped to see the new property that maple syrup entered the picture. “Sugar maple, sugar maple, sugar maple,” Andy said, pointing at trees as we drove down the lane. “You have a lot of sugar maples. You really should think about tapping them.”

So in 2012, we put in 100 taps on gravity tubing with the help of Uncle Andy. We hauled it 45 minutes away in Ford City, PA and he boiled the sap for us during the day while we were at work. We then would help him in the evening and weekends with filtering and bottling as well as clean up and firewood.

We had our first boiling season at the Maple Lodge. We welcomed 3rd generation sugar maker Eli into the world – he was born on the last night of boiling that sugar season.

Welcomed 3rd generation Jacob into the world

We upgraded our process to add a vacuum pump and reverse osmosis machine to speed up processing. We expanded our tap count to over 600!

We added an additional 50 acres of sugarbush to the farm and started planning for expansion

We completed the sugarbush expansion of that 50 acres and purchased another 125 acres for expansion

Successful season and ready to expand to the new farm. New CDL evaporator and tanks on order!