A Tree Grows in Bethlehem: Rocks Estate featured in Yankee magazine

If you’ve picked up the most recent issue of Yankee magazine, you may notice a familiar scene: the fields of The Rocks Estate! The Rocks is thrilled to be featured in New England’s favorite magazine, and the experience of working with the Yankee staff to bring The Rocks’ story to the page was wonderful.

“I’d been asking Yankee to do a story on The Rocks for probably 12 years,” said longtime Rock Estate manager Nigel Manley. Last spring he finally got the call he’d been waiting for, from Yankee editor Mel Allen, who was interested in featuring The Rocks in its holiday issue.

Photographer Matt Kalinowski takes a shot of Manley and dog Keswick.

“It’s the magazine’s 80^th anniversary year, and they were looking for New England places that have been around for a long time. The Rocks fit that bill,” Manley said. “The editors were really great about scheduling, both for photographs and interviews, making sure the weather was right and no one felt rushed. I’m really impressed with how much effort they put into it to make sure the end result was really good.”

Allen and contributing editor Annie Graves spent an entire day with Manley at the farm last spring, talking with him about his nearly 30 years at The Rocks, the process of growing Christmas trees, the estate’s long and storied history, and the enduring spirit of the holidays that permeates The Rocks year-round.

Once the snow fell in December, art director Lori Pedrick and photographer Matt Kalinowski spent another day at the farm, traipsing through freshly fallen snow and weaving through neat rows of Christmas trees. They took countless photographs – of Manley in the fields, the Rocks’ wreath-makers hard at work, the volunteers on the horse-drawn wagon rides, staff members in the shop, and customers at the farm.

“I’ve always loved to read Yankee, and my family gets our Christmas tree at The Rocks every year, so it wasn’t really much of a stretch to spend a morning wandering the fields, playing in the snow, and checking out the trees,” said Meghan McPhaul of Franconia, whose family was recruited for the photo shoot. “We’d already picked out our tree the weekend before, but it was great to have a bonus day at The Rocks – and we got to visit the horses and take one more wagon ride, which the kids always love.”

The story, titled “A Tree Grows in Bethlehem,” is featured in Yankee’s “Finding Christmas in New England” issue, published this month.