The Davis Mountain Apple Orchard, known for its picturesque ‘pick and pay’ experience, has hit a bump in the road. The orchard, nestled in the Davis Mountains, received a cease-and-desist letter from the Davis Mountain Resort Property Owners Association (DMR POA). The dispute centers around the orchard’s classification as a business due to advertising open weekends.
Despite efforts to comply by adjusting their communications and reducing their opening days, the cease-and-desist order has brought unexpected challenges for the orchard. While the future remains uncertain, the orchard’s owners, Denise and Phil de Tournillon, are committed to working with the community to find a resolution.
Facebook post by Davis Mountain Apple Orchard:
Greetings All,
We had a very successful apple harvest at our home on Colleen Canyon Trail, and many people thanked us. We were not there for the harvest this year, as Phil broke his foot in a way that demands he have access to sophisticated physical therapy to re-grow strong bone.
We want you to know our story. Seven years ago, we purchased our home believing the orchard was certainly doomed. Well over half of the trees died in the 3 years that the property was left untended. Between the dry earth, ground squires chewing the roots, and beetles & strange diseases eating the bark, we thought all the trees would soon die. Jeff Fisher told us that Ed and Mary Hall once had a beautiful orchard, but it was hard to imagine when we closed on the property. One day, we were inspired when Phil found Ed’s tools left on the barren ground from the days before he took ill. Many days working on the trees we thought of Ed and Mary, and we used their dreams to fuel our labor.
For the first 4 years, our families traveled from San Antonio to help us work the orchard. Last year, with all the tree growth, we needed to hire an Orchard Keeper, Erin Moore. This year, with Phil injured, Erin and her husband, Billy, agreed to help us with the harvest. Leaving fruit on the branches causes the trees not to “harden off”, and they keep growing and they die in the frosty winter. With joy in their hearts, Erin created an apple selling campaign so she and her husband could help us harvest all the fruit from the trees; however, we caught negative attention from the DMR POA.
While we asked the POA to consider us as a garage/yard sale, we were deemed to be operating a business outside of the DMR covenants, because we advertised to be open for 4 weekends. We have been served a letter to cease and desist. That letter arrived after the harvest was completed; demanding we answer the board by Oct 28th.
We want you to know that even before that letter ever reached us, we redressed our social media and external communications to abide by the verbalized wishes of the board. Ultimately, we were open only two weekends in a row, then we closed due to the rain. We opened one last weekend for one day. All other harvesting was done by family, neighbors, and school children. The orchard was open to the community for picking for only a total of 5 days.
Our efforts have paid off, as year after year, God has blessed us with more and better apples. This year the apples were huge and plentiful. We will be hard at work caring for the trees for 2024 and figuring out how to manage the harvest so that those who found us to be a nuisance and a hazard will instead find us to be a blessing. Clearly, the by-laws need re-tooling, as surely, we are an asset to the DMR. We hope you will come join us again next year.
Thank you,
Denise & Phil de Tournillon
