Malabar Farm

Malabar Farm is a working farm district of roughly 580 acres in Monroe Township, Richland County, Ohio, near Lucas. Author Louis Bromfield, who had lived in France for much of his literary career, returned to Ohio in 1938 and bought three run-down farms the next year. He combined them into Malabar Farm to show that eroded land could be reclaimed and made to produce food. The property includes his large 1939-40 house, built around an older residence and combining elements of several Ohio architectural styles, along with a main barn, milking parlor, silos and other outbuildings. Tenant houses, secondary barns and the 19th-century Malabar Inn, a summer restaurant, stand elsewhere on the grounds. Fields still show contour farming and water-control work from Bromfield's time. He used contour plowing, green manure, lime, grass silage and farm ponds, and his farm drew thousands of visitors and wide publicity. It was listed for its significance in agriculture, conservation and science.