We were lucky to catch up with Katie Lewis recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Katie, thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?
To the average person, the largest risk that you can take is taking your entire income and relying on a business that you own and operate. To me, the biggest risk that I could take as a professional, even from the age of 13, was relying on someone else to provide me with the income that I want, paired with the schedule that I want to have. I’d rather be hopelessly broke than to have my own tail on the hook with some corporation with their own ideas of what my work/life balance should look like. When I was 9 years old I was given a riding lesson for my birthday. By that age I was already hopelessly in love with all things equine and I came from a stable family, but not one that had excess funds to throw around. When I moved to SWVA I was able to start building my horseback riding and horse training business by taking all of the kids and horses no one thought would amount to much. Slowly but surely, with a lot of practice, blood, sweat, and tears, we started winning. The winning continued until the owner of the barn I trained at decided I needed to spread my wings elsewhere. In 2001, 2 days after I came home from NBHA Youth World Championships I bought a farm. My own slice of heaven laid out across 33 acres in Franklin County, VA. I was 15 years old and it was all no me. From then on my life revolved around paying $1,900 a month for my mortgage. I risked it all by building the fence for the property before the closing even happened, based solely on a handshake with the seller. A few days later the seller’s wife had a stroke, but thankfully the property closed on time. The following February my builder began building my $25,000 barn. I worked my way through high school and college until I took my next biggest risk at 18. My freshman year in college I was diagnosed with cancer and ultimately made the decision to go through multiple treatments, including chemo and radiation, without removing the organs effected. It’s a risk I’ll forever be grateful for as I’m now 6 years cancer free and only 4 years away from being considered ‘clear for life’ with the type of cancer I had.
Katie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
When I was in preschool, back when it was safe to walk home alone from preschool, I always passed horses in a field. My mom knew I wasn’t a fruit eater so my lunch included a pudding, rather than an apple or carrots. I’d trade that pudding for everyone else’s horse friendly food so I had something to lure them to the fence with so I could hop over the fence and lay on their backs. At 4-5 years old I probably fell off more than I stayed on, but I was hooked. By the time I was 8 my Daddy took me to a friend’s farm. Everyone called him a ‘horse whisperer’ before Nicholas Evans and Robert Redford made that term popular. Within an hour I had made names and stories for all 50 horses in his barn. My Daddy’s friend then brought a big black horse into the arena. He shared that the horse was a stallion, untouched, unbroke, and unhandled. Within 30 minutes he had a halter and lead, as well as a blanket and saddle on the stallion. He plucked me off the fence and set me astride the huge black stallion before anyone else got on his back. I got to see first hand what my Daddy meant when he said his friend ‘got inside their heads and spoke their language.’ I was hooked on the idea and read everything I could get my hands on about this language they spoke, finally landing upon ‘The Man Who Listens to Horses’ by Monty Roberts. Now, a single glance at my horses grazing in the pasture and I can tell how they are feeling on any given day and it’s a skill that’s served me well. But in 2006 the horse business and the world economy started taking a hit. I needed more than mouths to feed and broke parents and horse owners to work for. I started bartending before I was legal, but I loved how much every single shift was different, how every drink could be a masterpiece, and how my wages could still be based upon my own effort and skills. Bartending in clubs led to opening clubs, then to white tablecloth dining and wine dinners, eventually mixology, and landing me in the wine, beer, and spirits industry as a sales rep, importer, district manager, and eventually the Adult Beverage Specialist for the entire Mid Atlantic Region for the largest grocer in the United States. Meeting my husband and our love for farming led us to buying a vineyard and creating relationships within the winery and vineyards in our area where we still stay as active partners, even after selling our vines and some of our land. We still actively own Serenity Wine & Equine, Leaping Lewis Inc., Curated by Katie Event Design, and Leave It To Lewis Realty Group, all based at our farm in Bedford County, Virginia.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
Pivot happened in a big way in 2023 for our family. One June 10, 20 hours after our first vacation of the year began, I got a voicemail from my mother while I was in international waters off the coast of the Southern Outer Banks. 8 hours away in my hometown my Daddy had fallen at 90 years old and an ambulance was on the way to get him and rush him to our local trauma center. By the time we had reached the dock and made it back to our vehicle we already heard the words ‘fracture to his femur’ from the doctors. In an almost unspoken way my husband and I knew our lives were about to change in a big way. I knew my mother wouldn’t be able to care for him. I knew there was going to be a very long and hard road to recovery which would take up much of my time if I had the time and I knew I’d lose my Daddy if I didn’t make the time. The following month I closed the magazine we’d been running for 3 years in order to focus my daily life on my Daddy’s recovery, and shifted my business focus to Curated by Katie Event Design. Something I had just opened in May was now going to be one of the primary sources of income for our family. But in doing just that, I reinvented myself and our business and fell in love with finally being paid and recognized for what I was doing so often for others.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
When it comes to capital, one of my favorite things to do is not to spend my own money. Specifically when we purchased our vineyard I knew we were going to buy it and nothing would stop me, but I didn’t have that kind of cash laying around. Thanks to the sale of my first farm being a few years behind me, I was able to ask the government to help us. The government doesn’t always like to give money away, but they do if you go about asking the right way. Using First Time Farmer Loans, working with the USDA, FSA, & Farm Credit we were able to make the purchase with less than 10% down out of our own pocket. By keeping myself as 51% owner we were able to get the first year of crop protection insurance for free! Had we kept the land and decided to build a modest residence, we could have continued to borrow from the same funds up to $600,000 total! Always look elsewhere for the money you need.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/klalewis229/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KLAnderson253/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-lewis-932a85aa/
- Twitter: @BeKindDrinkWine
Image Credits
Roanoke Real Estate Photos, Jim & Regina Devinney