The Roots of a Cheshire Landmark:

The 75-Year History of the Drazen Family and Drazen Orchards

By Richard "Reggie" Smith Research/Editor Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0

When Drazen Orchards announced in June 2026 that it was permanently closing its gates after 75 years, Cheshire lost far more than another farm stand. The closing marked the end of one of the town's last family-operated orchards—a place where generations of residents picked apples, bought peaches still warm from the sun, rode hay wagons, and experienced firsthand a piece of Cheshire's agricultural heritage.

For three generations, the Drazen family transformed 27.5 acres on Wallingford Road into one of Connecticut's best-known pick-your-own orchards. Along the way, they blended old-fashioned farming with engineering innovation, embraced changing agricultural science, and quietly became deeply involved in the civic life of Cheshire.

Their story is one of adaptation, perseverance, and community.

Planting New Roots in Cheshire

The modern history of Drazen Orchards began in 1951, when David Drazen, a wholesale fruit and produce dealer from New Haven, purchased the former Hotchkiss farm on Wallingford Road.

Having spent years buying and selling produce, David wanted to become a grower himself. He and his wife Ida Drazen left urban New Haven for what was then a largely rural Cheshire, where orchards, dairy farms, tobacco fields and woodlands dominated the landscape.

The farm David purchased was very different from the orchard residents came to know.

The property contained large, mature standard apple trees that had been planted decades earlier. Varieties included:

• Macintosh

• Macoun

• Baldwin

• Rome

• Northern Spy

These traditional trees often reached 30 feet or more in height.

Harvesting required crews of experienced pickers climbing long wooden ladders carrying heavy picking bags. Every autumn represented weeks of physically demanding labor, with fruit carefully hand-picked high above the ground.

Although the orchard was already productive, it reflected New England fruit growing methods that had changed little for generations.

David would spend the next two decades building the business while laying the foundation for future expansion.

Ida Drazen: Building Community

While David established the orchard, his wife Ida Drazen became deeply involved in Cheshire's civic organizations.

Newspaper accounts from the 1950s and early 1960s show that Ida was a familiar figure in numerous community organizations.

She was active in the:

• Cheshire Homemakers

• Cheshire Home Economics Club

• Cheshire Blood Program

• Various charitable and civic committees

Her name appears repeatedly in local newspapers serving as hostess, committee chair, organizer, and volunteer.

In December 1955, Ida hosted members of the Cheshire Homemaking Club at the family's Wallingford Road home for a traditional Swedish Christmas luncheon. Twenty-two members and guests attended, preparing authentic Swedish dishes under the direction of club leaders before exchanging Christmas gifts and planning upcoming educational programs.

The following years found Ida serving in leadership positions within the Cheshire Homemakers organization. By 1958 she chaired the club's program committee, and in 1959 she was elected leader of the Cheshire Home Economics Club, succeeding Merle Sutherland. Newspaper reports listed her alongside many of Cheshire's longtime civic volunteers, including Birdsey Norton, Franklin Wooding, Herbert Malmberg, Robert Haire, and Edmund Faeth.

Ida also volunteered extensively with the Cheshire Blood Program. A 1962 newspaper article listed her among dozens of women helping recruit blood donors and staffing Connecticut Regional Bloodmobile visits held at First Congregational Church. These efforts represented the kind of volunteer civic infrastructure that characterized Cheshire during the postwar years.

The newspaper clippings preserved from this era reveal that the Drazen family was becoming woven into the everyday social fabric of the community long before the orchard became a destination.

Gordon Drazen: Engineer Turned Orchardist

David's son, Gordon Drazen, did not originally plan to become a farmer.

Born in 1923, Gordon graduated from Hillhouse High School before attending Georgia Tech. World War II interrupted his education, and he served with the U.S. Army Infantry in Italy before returning home and completing his engineering degree at the University of Connecticut.

For decades Gordon pursued a successful engineering career.

He worked as:

• Vice President of W. J. Megin Company

• Project manager for Morganti Construction

• Engineer with E & F Construction

Meanwhile, he remained active in Cheshire government, serving on both the Cheshire Sewer Commission and later the Planning and Zoning Commission during the 1970s and 1980s.

Yet the orchard remained part of his life.

In 1970, David needed additional help managing the growing farm, and Gordon returned to oversee day-to-day operations while continuing his engineering career.

When he retired from engineering in 1982, Gordon began what he often described as his "second career."

It would transform Drazen Orchards.

Engineering Meets Agriculture

Rather than simply maintaining what his father had built, Gordon systematically modernized nearly every aspect of the orchard.

Drawing upon his engineering background, he redesigned the farm around efficiency, science, and sustainability.

A Modern Irrigation System

Instead of relying primarily on the property's large pond, Gordon designed and installed a modern irrigation system connected to municipal water.

The system allowed virtually every planting on the property to receive controlled irrigation during dry summers, dramatically improving fruit quality and reliability.

High-Density Orchards

Perhaps his greatest innovation involved replacing aging standard apple trees with dwarf and semi-dwarf plantings.

Traditional orchards typically accommodated about 90 trees per acre.

Gordon's new system increased density to roughly 350 trees per acre.

The benefits were enormous:

• safer harvesting

• easier pruning

• better sunlight penetration

• higher production

• more fruit varieties

• earlier bearing trees

The transformation completely changed how the orchard operated.

Integrated Pest Management

Long before it became standard practice, Gordon adopted Integrated Pest Management (IPM).

Rather than relying solely on routine chemical spraying, he monitored insect populations, followed regional agricultural data, subscribed to numerous horticultural publications, and regularly consulted with fellow growers.

His goal was to reduce unnecessary spraying while maintaining healthy crops.

Friends and colleagues recalled that Gordon was constantly reading agricultural journals and experimenting with improved growing techniques.

Joe Shookies and the Modern Orchard

One of Gordon's closest collaborators was longtime orchard manager Joseph Shookies.

Together they handled much of the orchard's annual pruning themselves.

Shookies later recalled that he originally came intending to stay only a few weeks but remained for years because he loved both the work and the atmosphere.

According to Gordon, Shookies also convinced the family to modernize its retail operation.

For decades the orchard's roadside stand consisted of a small building near Wallingford Road where customers often selected fruit and simply left payment in a cash drawer, making their own change.

By the early 2000s that approach no longer met customer expectations.

In 2002, the family built the large timber-frame farm market that became the public face of Drazen Orchards for the next quarter century.

The spacious new building offered fresh fruit, cider, honey, jams, baked goods and locally produced products while accommodating the rapidly growing pick-your-own business.

A Destination Orchard

As the orchard expanded, so did its offerings.

Rather than depending solely on apples, the Drazens diversified into an extended harvest season.

Visitors could return throughout the year for:

Summer

• Blueberries

• Quince

Late Summer

• Peaches

• Nectarines

• Blackberries

• Pears

• Plums

Autumn

• More than 4,000 apple trees representing dozens of varieties

Among the orchard's most sought-after crops were its famous prune plums, which developed an almost cult following.

Every August local residents eagerly awaited their arrival to bake the celebrated New York Times Plum Torte recipe created by food writer Marian Burros.

Many customers planned their late-summer baking calendars around Drazen's annual plum harvest.

A Community Gathering Place

The orchard increasingly became more than a farm.

It became a gathering place for the community.

Among its many partnerships were:

Hadassah Rosh Hashanah Celebrations

The Cheshire Chapter of Hadassah regularly hosted family apple-picking events at the orchard.

These celebrations combined hayrides, educational talks by local beekeepers, crafts, apple picking and honey sales.

One event raised more than $500 for local programming while introducing dozens of families to both Jewish holiday traditions and Cheshire agriculture.

Cheshire Grange Fair

In partnership with the historic Cheshire Grange, Drazen Orchards provided wagon rides between the Grange Fair and the orchard, allowing visitors to experience two of Cheshire's longest-standing agricultural institutions during a single afternoon.

Community Events

The orchard also hosted charitable fundraisers, educational tours, seasonal celebrations and nonprofit events, reinforcing its role as one of Cheshire's most recognizable agricultural landmarks.

Lisa and Eli Drazen

As Gordon aged, leadership gradually passed to his children.

Eli Drazen became the orchard's principal grower.

He managed the health of more than 4,000 fruit trees while overseeing pruning, spraying, irrigation, harvesting and seasonal labor.

His sister Lisa Drazen assumed responsibility for business operations, customer relations and marketing.

Lisa also developed one of the orchard's most distinctive traditions.

Beginning around 2011, she wrote monthly Facebook posts exploring traditional moon names and agricultural folklore.

Her essays explained names such as:

• Worm Moon

• Sap and Sugar Moon

• Pink Moon

• Harvest Moon

She connected Native American traditions, Old Farmer's Almanac lore, weather patterns and seasonal farming cycles, creating an educational feature eagerly anticipated by many followers.

Lisa also remained active in Cheshire civic life.

She publicly supported local causes, participated in Cheshire Land Trust's Farmers' Forum discussing the future of agriculture in town, and continued promoting farmland preservation as development pressures increased.

The Final Season

The challenges facing Connecticut agriculture became increasingly difficult during the 2020s.

Weather extremes, rising labor costs, equipment expenses, insurance, utilities and declining crop yields all combined to make orchard operations more difficult than ever.

The winter of 2025–2026 followed by damaging spring weather devastated many fruit crops.

Peaches, pears, apples, blueberries, plums and quince all suffered significant losses.

In June 2026, the family announced that they had made the painful decision to permanently close Drazen Orchards.

In their statement they wrote that they were choosing not to endure another season of "ever-increasing costs, hard work and long hours" necessary to produce a successful crop, particularly after extensive weather damage had left little fruit to harvest.

The announcement saddened thousands of loyal customers throughout central Connecticut.

A Lasting Legacy

The closing of Drazen Orchards came only thirteen months after the closure of another Cheshire agricultural icon, Norton Brothers Fruit Farm.

Together, those two closures symbolize the enormous pressures confronting family farming throughout Connecticut.

Yet the legacy of the Drazen family extends far beyond the orchard itself.

For seventy-five years they demonstrated that successful farming required continual adaptation.

David Drazen brought entrepreneurial vision to Cheshire.

Ida Drazen helped strengthen the town's civic organizations through years of volunteer service.

Gordon Drazen combined engineering with agriculture to reinvent the modern orchard.

Eli and Lisa Drazen carried that tradition into the twenty-first century, preserving not only productive farmland but also a place where generations of families created memories together.

Today, the future of the 27.5-acre property on Wallingford Road remains uncertain.

Its orchards may someday change, but the contribution of the Drazen family to Cheshire's agricultural, civic, and social history is secure. Their story is one of innovation rooted in tradition—a family that spent three generations cultivating not only fruit, but a lasting sense of community that will remain part of Cheshire's history for years to come.