OUR STORY
Kathy and Tim O’Leary are the owners and operators of Valley View Orchard and Long Walk Vineyard.
Originally from Northern California, they met while attending college at Stanford. While pursuing individual careers and sharing lifelong interests in sports, music, and travel, they remained in the Bay Area and got married in 1989. Their two children, Brian and Margaret, followed in 1991 and 1994.
Home & Family
Ashland, Oregon, a wonderful small city of arts and natural beauty, was a frequent getaway spot for Kathy and Tim from the time they were in college. Looking for an antidote to the growing congestion and pace of life in the Bay Area, and wanting to introduce their young children to life on a working farm and orchard, Kathy and Tim purchased Ashland’s historic Valley View Orchard in 2000.
Historic Orchard & Farm Life
A very good bottle of wine played a large role in Kathy and Tim’s decision to take on the challenge of operating a 50-acre orchard, with no previous farming experience. Their vision from the beginning was to transition the Orchard from a conventional operation to an organic, sustainable one. They completed the transition to organic in 2002 and have been certified by Oregon Tilth ever since. Angel Delgado was one of the orchard’s first hires and he has been with the O’Leary’s ever since, managing an expanding fruit operation which now produces cherries, apples, peaches, pears and apricots — harvesting over 250 tons per year.
In the past, the orchard has operated a summer u-pick and farm store, has participated in community farmer’s markets, has supplied local stores and restaurants, and has sold apples and pears commercially to schools and broader wholesale markets. New in the picture is an orchard membership subscription for direct to consumer ordering, fulfillment and pick up.
A Wine Dream Comes to Life
In 2002, the Ashland property also became home to Long Walk Vineyard and Tasting House. Following a dream sparked on their honeymoon, which included visits to many great wineries in the South of France, Kathy and Tim’s plan for the property always included planting a vineyard. With the great help of Kathy’s sister Linda Donovan, who is now a successful local winemaker, they began to plant 11 acres of their favorite grape varietals that would grow beautifully in the mineral rich soils of the Rogue Valley appellation. Long Walk Vineyard now produces elegant rosés, as well as Mourvedre, Syrah, Grenache, Carignane and Zinfandel. Every year sees a blend of red wines made to represent the vintage, as well as single varietal bottlings.
After many years as grape growers, the O’Leary’s expanded into bottling and selling wine, and in 2018 they opened the on-site Long Walk Vineyard Tasting House
The Tasting House was built with many repurposed materials from buildings on the property, including 100 year old barn wood and the tin panels from a chicken coop. Sporting stunning views of the property, the surrounding hills and mountains and the city of Ashland, there could not be a better spot to enjoy wine tasting.
A Commitment to Restorative Practices
In addition to their fruit and wine businesses, and their close connection to the Ashland community, Kathy and Tim are proud of the natural environment they have cultivated on the property. It is home to many species of birds, bats, forest animals, a community of bees and a rafter of turkeys — truly a place of natural abundance. The O’Leary’s are firmly committed to not only sustainable, but restorative practices. The last two years have seen the implementation of almost two acres of restored habitat - planted with more than one hundred native plant species to support pollinators and other insects beneficial to the Orchard and Vineyard. They have many other projects in the works, as they continue to focus on the health of the land and those that live on it.