Hillcrest Orchards celebrating its 75th anniversary

When the late Heyward Reece learned his daughter Janice was planning to have a “petting farm” at Hillcrest Orchards, the idea didn’t sit so well.

“When I first told him I was going to do it, he thought that was just a crazy idea, that nobody would pay to see and pet farm animals,” she said. “But we kinda won him over, and he enjoyed it. He always liked people, so he enjoyed visiting with all the people and the kids at the petting farm and the apple house.”

Reece, a World War II veteran who was captured just over the border from France in the Allied push toward Berlin, served time in a German stalag as a prisoner of war. After getting out of the Army in 1946, he bought some existing apple tree acreage, and Hillcrest Orchards was born 75 years ago.

“Over the years, we just added to it over where we live (in the Cartecay community),” said Janice, who now co-owns the agribusiness with her husband, Lynn Hale.

“We didn’t build over here on the highway until 1978. Before that, we just sold them out of the orchard over there on Rackley Road. But the market has totally changed over the years. Back then we were wholesale, basically. Then when we moved over here we got into retail, but we were still a lot wholesale. After my first husband died, we got into the agritourism part of it, and so we’ve been totally retail for a lot of years now.

“It’s all totally changed. We used to pack a lot (of apples) at the packing house, but then that went away. So we had to do something.”

For decades now, Hillcrest has been a mainstay on the Apple Alley section — Highway 52 East — of Gilmer County. The orchard and apple house sit on 30 acres, and its popularity is underscored by 10 of those acres being needed for parking during the late summer/autumn season. Their other orchard property is 300 acres, but not all of it is in apple trees. Hillcrest has a “you pick” orchard with varieties such as Gold Rush, Rome Beauty, Arkansas Black and Granny Smith, along with some Golden Delicious, Pink Ladies and Fujis.

“The frost back in the spring zapped certain varieties, like the Goldens and the Pink Ladies, because it got warm really early,” Janice explained. “But luckily, in our ‘you pick’ orchard there are more Romes than anything else, so they made it. I don’t know how long they’ll last, we’ll let (patrons) pick them as long as they do.”

She noted late frosts are “what happens” in orcharding.

“We’ll carry on,” said Janice. “We haven’t had them killed in a lot of years, so we’ve been real fortunate.”

For years, like other apple growers, Hillcrest used the old packing house that still stands on Industrial Boulevard.

“In 2013, we bought the property next door, so we built our own big cooler,” she continued. “We planted more ‘you pick’ trees over there, and added the little golf course and the apple tree maze and all that. We added the petting zoo in 1993. That was the first thing we did as far as agritourism, that and the school tours. Then we just added a little bit each year as we could. Had we known how big we were going to get, we would’ve just stayed over there where we had a lot more land! Because we’re kinda boxed in now, we can’t go anywhere. When the 10 acres of parking is full, that’s about all we need to handle here.”

Hillcrest has remained a seasonal apple house and is not open throughout the year.

“When I got out of college, there were over 50 members at the packing house,” Janice recalled. “Then when (the state of) Washington developed CA storage (controlled atmosphere), a lot of people just quit because that was their only market. We stayed in, but you had to find a new market. Nobody’s big enough in Georgia, really, to have that kind of storage. You’re talking millions of dollars and you have to have a lot of quantity to justify it. So we pretty much sell in season and that’s it.”

Storefront operation, traffic control

During peak apple season in the county, cars get so packed entering and exiting Hillcrest that traffic control has to be utilized.

“We always hire traffic parkers — if one car parks wrong, we’re just messed up for the whole day!” Janice confided. “We’ve got four parking lots all the way up the hill, with the biggest parking (area) in the back. We have attendants at all our parking lots and attendants at all our actitivies, just for safety. We have to hire a lot of folks in the fall for those weekdays and weekends in September and October. Luckily, a lot of my people come back year after year, so that’s nice. But there’s still a lot that don’t — they go off to college and whatnot.”

Hillcrest Orchards is “kinda famous” for the apple fritters their bakery produces, as well as apple cider doughnuts and pies.

“A lot of people buy the fritters with ice cream,” she noted. “On weekends, we have chicken tender meals, tacos, hot dogs, hamburgers, turkey legs, barbecue, and all the sweet stuff too, ice cream, cider slushies and sorghum (syrup). We serve a lot outside and have a little cafe inside. That’s a whole ‘nother side of the business I didn’t really want to get into, (being a) restaurant, but we’re not close to anything and people want to stay half a day or all day, so they need something to eat. So we’ve sorta evolved into that, and it’s kind of a big deal now.”

The agribusiness has also evolved away from some fruit products.

“We grew peaches for several years, grew strawberries a few years, and by the time fall got here, I was already tired,” said Janice. “And you don’t need to go into (autumn) tired. Our peach trees were needing to be replaced — they don’t live as long as apple trees — so we decided to just let them go and concentrate on fall.”

Anything new in the celebratory 75th year?

“We’ve added some food items, but we’re really just trying to make what we do better and bigger,” she informed. “We added a ‘ball zone’ and jumping pillow. That was a big hit, so we talked about adding on to the ball zone because it’s definitely not big enough. Last year with Covid, we had no idea what to expect. We didn’t do any school tours because public schools weren’t allowing them. So we were trying to build up our weekday business by those additions. The ball zone is like games at the fair, and they love it — adults especially!

“We’re just promoting it as our 75th year, because it is a milestone for our family. We’re not doing anything big about it. My daughter, Kristen Smith, does all our social media and she’s put it on there.”

Year after year, patrons return to Hillcrest.

“We have a lot of repeat customers. In fact, we’ve got people who came here as a child and then they bring back their kids or even their grandkids,” Janice said. “It helps when you’ve got a little customer base.”

Suddenly, her husband Lynn drove up in his pickup truck and tooted the horn. When told he’d been seen in a photo holding two baby goats, Janice quipped, “He’s the Goat Whisperer, and sheep and cows!”

“I’m the Trash Master!” he replied.

With a degree in accounting from West Georgia College, Janice crunched numbers at the local Hensley-Land firm for many years. It’s a good background to have for agribusiness.

“But this is totally different from an accounting degree! I always said I’d never do this (orcharding business), but never say never,” she remarked with a laugh. ⊂