‘Lawyer’s Overlook’ offers agritourism, engagement

05 Jul ‘Lawyer’s Overlook’ offers agritourism, engagement

Lawyer’s Overlook, on Stewart Lane in La Grange, offers not only an event venue but special dinners, like the Summer Solstice Dinner held in June 21. The venue also holds festivals, and events like Food Truck Friday, coming up in July. The farm also has animals anyone can come out and visit, like pigs, goats and ducks.

By Bobbie Curd
The Oldham Era
Jun 15, 2022

A new event venue in Oldham County invites the community to come check out what it has to offer. On June 21, Lawyer’s Overlook offered a catered Summer Solstice Dinner, including pairings with two different local beverage companies.

Channing Stewart said the venue came out of a passion to keep her husband’s family farm together, and was named to honor her later father-in-law, John Frith Stewart, a longtime labor lawyer who passed last year.

“We named it that because it was Nathan’s dad’s home. His parents bought the farm and built the house here …” Stewart said. She said after the elder Stewart died, she and Nathan purchased it to turn it into something special.

“It sits right in the middle of the farm, and we wanted to keep it in the family,” she said.

The home on the farm that’s been touched up and turned into an event venue was designed by Nathan’s architect brother, John Stewart. She described the design as mid-century modern, situated at the top of a hill with beautiful 360-degree views.

“Where the house is, next to the woods, blends really well to the flow of an event — we’ve held weddings out in the woods with cocktail hour around the pool, or in a wedding tent out in a field. It’s really beautiful.”

And after meeting Carlie Cornett, who owns True North Catering, Stewart said they began offering Secret Supper events, an homage to the old-time supper clubs that used to be around.

“She created a menu with a lot of local farms’ ingredients, and we don’t release it beforehand, so guests don’t find out until that night what they were getting.”

Stewart said the venue is also partnering with Hive and Barrel Meadery, which Cornett often uses ingredients from in her dishes, or pairs them together. Mile Wide Beer Company will also be on-hand with its special brews, too.

“And we’ll have live music.”

Stewart is a teacher at North Oldham High School. “I guess it’s important for me, as a teacher, to create a space to engage in meaningful conversation,” she said. “I think my need for creating that engagement has sort of overflowed into being one of the goals for sharing our farm and our event space.”

She calls herself the “idea person,” while husband Nathan is “a brilliant problem-solver — he’s the detail and organization person.”

Stewart said that after all the world is going through, engagement between community members is extremely important.

“COVID did a number on us, and the politics that people are so divided over. I feel like if we ever got to know each other, we’d find out we’re all more alike than we’re unalike.”

She said maybe her need to create engagement has “overflowed into being one of the goals for sharing our farm and our event space.”

But there are other reasons to come to the farm, Stewart said. They will continue to offer dinner events and a venue for weddings and other celebrations, but it is also an agritourism attraction.

“If people want to come out and visit, we live at the back of the property and we have goats, pics, chickens and ducks. They can call and schedule a time to come out and see the animals,” she said. “That’s what our Fall Festival is all about, we have people come out in October for family fun.”

Lawyer’s Overlook will also offer Food Truck Friday at the farm on July 8.

Stewart said for those who want to keep up to date with all the upcoming offerings, they can follow the Facebook page, or visit a brand-new website they just created, at thelawyersoverlook.com.

The venue is located on Stewart Lane in La Grange.

As far as future plans, Stewart said, “Ideally, we want to create a permanent structure in the field, like a barn for events. We’d love that, but really we just want to promote agritourism, host community events, and offer the community a place where people can celebrate with their family and create memories, and something that’s affordable.”