Located in the southwest corner of Middlesex County, Jireh Hills Family Homestead owners John Mark and Cheryl Charlton have organically grown their business through their family's experiences. After moving from the city to living on rural farm land, it's been a learning process over the years of how to grow their own food, raise a variety of animals and more. Now, they are thrilled to share what they know with the public who visit the homestead to learn about and enjoy things like this themselves.
Tell us about your business and what you do.
People who don't have the opportunity to live on a farm, we provide a safe, educational place where they can come and get to do things like see how a goat is milked, feed alpacas and get a lot of hands-on opportunity with animals. On top of that, we offer overnight farm stays so people who come from further away, they can spend the day and night.
Luxurious lodging is the idea where people can come and they can do their business here if they want but at the same time, they can go out and get their hands dirty.
What are the benefits of your company being located in Middlesex County?
Middlesex County is such a beautiful area. You're surrounded by blue and green. We're a 45 minute radius to four major cities, London, Chatham, Grand Bend, Sarnia and our customer base draws from those areas a lot of the time.
How have you found your experience doing business in Middlesex County?
One of the goals of Middlesex County is having sustainable tourism within the area. We were awarded with the 2022 Sustainable Trailblazers of the Year Award. Working with Middlesex County, we want to be an example of what sustainable tourism looks like.
We're trying to push the ultimate staycation destination that we think is very unique and with the repeat customers we're constantly having, it testifies to people really enjoying it. - John Mark Charlton