Isabella Rossellini and her daughter Elettra Wiedemann are getting into the bed & breakfast business and borrowing some interior design inspiration from Rossellini’s former partner and frequent director, David Lynch.
The actress and her model offspring purchased a three-acre property in the hamlet of Brookhaven, Long Island in 2013, turning it into an organic farm known as Mama Farm. But Rossellini insists, in an interview with Wall Street Journal, that “it is really a piazza for the community to get together,” with the name referring to all the women and female animals that inhabit it. Rossellini adds, “My slogan is ‘Make America Small Again!’ Small businesses, mom-and-pop shops, artisanal farms—when things become too big you can’t wrap your head around it.”
Until this summer, the only outside visitors allowed on the farm were customers of their weekly CSA box, which allows the community to purchase some of their produce, including heirloom vegetables, eggs, bread, meat, maple syrup, and cheese. But starting this month, Mama Farm will also begin offering guests a chance to stay at their three-bedroom boutique inn with full access to the rest of the property, as well. Once there, activities available include a “full moon” concert series, a pop-up restaurant from local chef Francis Derby, and monthly Sunday morning children’s music classes, which include breakfast and a farm scavenger hunt. One of the three bedrooms available for guests to rent has been dubbed the “David Lynch room” due to the “cheeky photographs” taken by the director that decorate it. Although, in a seriously missed opportunity, the entire space has not been upholstered in blue velvet.
Wiedemann explained that they wanted to open a B&B on the property because “We noticed that a lot of our farm members would have family and friends come to visit and not have enough room to comfortably accommodate them.” Rossellini adds, “In Italy, they have agriturismo—small farms that are able to prepare food and entertain people, where you can stay overnight and bring your children to see chickens and animals. I thought we could adopt that model. The biggest problem with small, organic farms is making them financially viable. It is essential that mine will become so, because I won’t be around forever.”
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