The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers: An Unconventional Memoir

Josh Kilmer-Purcell and his partner, Dr. Brent Ridge, embody a specific strain of urban exhaustion. He is a former drag queen turned advertising executive; Brent is a physician turned Martha Stewart Living television personality. Their life in a 700-square-foot Manhattan apartment is one of high-stakes professional performance. During a fall apple-picking excursion, a wrong turn leads them to the hauntingly beautiful, dilapidated village of Sharon Springs, New York, and the Beekman Mansion—a 205-year-old Federal-style home on sixty acres. On a whim, they purchase it as a weekend retreat, a fantasy of gentle farming and genteel restoration. This fantasy rapidly acquires the weight of reality. They hire Farmer John, a caretaker who arrives with a herd of goats, and soon find themselves managing not just a garden but an expanding heirloom vegetable empire. The goat milk, initially a byproduct, becomes the foundation of Beekman 1802, an artisanal soap and product business boosted by Brent’s Martha Stewart connections. Their weekends transform into a frenetic cycle of planting, harvesting, canning, and branding, a second full-time job layered atop their demanding city careers. The memoir charts this dizzying ascent, where the line between idyllic escape and a demanding, image-conscious enterprise blurs. The 2008 economic collapse acts as a catalyst for crisis. Both men lose their primary incomes, and the farm—now a necessary business rather than a luxurious hobby—threatens to bankrupt them. The pressure fractures their relationship, exposing a fundamental rift between Josh’s Oprah-esque desire for a “best life” of authentic experience and Brent’s Martha-driven pursuit of impeccable, marketable perfection. Their dream becomes a source of profound strain, forcing them to confront whether they are building a life together or merely a beautiful, stressful brand. The book’s significance lies in its candid dissection of the modern back-to-the-land movement, stripped of sentimentality. It speaks to anyone who has romanticized a simpler life, revealing the complex interplay of love, labor, economics, and personal identity required to make such a leap. It is a story about the American Dream recalibrated for the 21st century, where sustainability is both an agricultural principle and a relational necessity.