Home on the Farm

Imagine a bucolic haven complete with a chicken coop that provides fresh eggs every day and a greenhouse teeming with herbs and vegetables. There are wide, open spaces to roam at one’s leisure, a gazebo, and a private sandy beach kissing a two-and-a-half-acre pond for moments of quiet reflection and cozy accommodations in the form of a few grain bins turned rustic Airbnb getaway.

All of this can be found in Rocky Point, just 13 miles outside of Wilmington’s city limits.

“It’s honestly my go-to place to just relax,” says DEBBIE FOWLER, one of the owners of Triple F Farm.

But as passionate as she is about the Fowler family farm, it isn’t all that’s on her plate. She has been a registered nurse for about thirty years, and she works in sales with BioMatrix LLC, facilitating processes for transplant organs up and down the East Coast. Given how much she has to travel for this work, it’s safe to say that she’s learned a lot about what makes for an ideal place to stay when one finds themselves in unfamiliar territory.

“Certain little touches mean so much and make people feel special,” she says. “That’s what I think we really wanted when we decided to do this.”

The funny thing is that renovating what used to be a working farm with row crops wasn’t originally supposed to create an Airbnb listing. That idea started with her youngest daughter, REGAN FOWLER, and took off thanks to Debbie’s love of entertaining. In the true tradition of a family business, her eldest daughter, SAMANTHA, lent her expertise and started the property’s website and blog before going on to study nursing like her mother in upstate New York.

Located twelve minutes away from the family home, the farmhouse getaway really began to take shape with the help of some friends, who brought the grain bins for the Fowlers to renovate up to code. Aside from the assistance from a professional framer who helped them work with the rounded walls, Debbie and her husband KENNY, of Kenny Fowler Heating & Air, spent the next year and a half doing the rest of the work when their regular day jobs allowed. The whiskey room, for example, features pieces of an older chicken house, and Debbie Fowler strategically burned the aged boards on the ceilings herself despite August’s summer heat.

“Nothing was planned,” she says. “We just … went along.”

Their very first guest stayed with them a year ago, on January 29, 2024, after Debbie Fowler tested the house out for about five days to make sure everything was up to par.

“We’ve met the most wonderful people,” she says. “They’ve come from Wrightsville Beach and all the way to Washington State.”

While guests can interact with the chickens, ducks, and rabbits, there are also some less conventional neighbors living on the property: retired show Texas Longhorns. The Fowlers got their bovine friends from Flying S Ranch, and while they started out with three brothers, they’ve also recently acquired another bull and a pregnant female who is due in March or April.

To some, Debbie Fowler’s affinity for the animals might seem like it comes from out of left field, but she’s had a soft spot for the gentle giants for as long as she can remember. As a kid in South Florida, her parents often took her to visit a farm, where she got to ride an older, docile bull by the name of Blue. It was an experience she never forgot.

“I always used to say when I was a little girl that I wanted one,” she says. “Well, I got my wish!” 

She takes it upon herself to clean and maintain the house and the surrounding property but also stocks the house before each guest’s arrival, so they don’t have to leave at all if they don’t want to. That includes complimentary wine and wine glasses to toast their stay with and a standing offer to source local beef and seafood upon request.

Since opening its doors, the farm has hosted a couple of weddings, but Debbie Fowler says she prefers to stick to intimate, smaller ceremonies going forward. Either way, she’s happy to host in-laws or even the brides and grooms of weddings being held at other venues nearby. Since there aren’t a lot of accommodations in her area, she’s just glad to provide a home away from home to whoever happens to need one, no matter the occasion.

Simply put, she says, “If you could imagine your Zen place, this would be it.”

To view more of writer Katelynn Watkins’ work, go to k-watkins.com.

To view more of photographer Madeline Gray’s work, go to madelinegrayphoto.com.

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