Virginia Emmons McNaught has served in the Peace Corps, helping reforest the desert and founding a literacy program in the West African nation of Niger. She’s founded nonprofits in Miami that provide disadvantaged youth access to educational opportunities. Now, at 50, the third-generation Greendale resident is home.
“I went out, I saw the world, and now I’m back,” she says. “I learned a lot about the world and how resources are distributed, and felt a huge responsibility to also do something in my own backyard.”
For Emmons McNaught, this has meant helping build two community-oriented businesses with her husband, Brett McNaught, in the heart of Greendale’s village: Field Workshop, a family-friendly creative arts studio they co-founded in 2020, and Broad Street Coffee Co. & Cafe, which they bought three years later. Now she’s ready for a larger, and potentially more impactful, role.
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This spring, Milwaukee County tapped her to restore the Parks System’s underused Trimborn Farm. The historic 7½-acre property has been a dairy farm (1901-35) and also produced lime (1847-99); its nine buildings – including a Greek Revival farmhouse – date as far back as the 1840s. Emmons McNaught says she feels her role with the property is as “a steward of the community.” She’s excited about activating the property for more than just occasional tours.
“The buildings have not been accessible to the community, unless by appointment,” she says. To her, activation means artisan vendor stalls, educational programming, event rentals, a cafe and limited guest lodging. She also wants to broaden the message about the provenance of the site, which was known as Kipi Kawi prior to the 1833 Treaty of Chicago and had been inhabited by Indigenous people. “If it’s going to be a historical park, it needs to represent the entire arc of history,” she says, “not just the one that starts in the 1840s.”
As any person working in historic preservation knows, restoring buildings requires deep pockets. Emmons McNaught hopes the new uses can fund these costs. The goal is to start operating under this new chapter by fall.
“Few people have done more to champion Trimborn Farm than Virginia,” says County Sup. Kathleen Vincent, who represents the site. “Her dedication to preserving this historic landmark has been extraordinary, but what truly sets her apart is her proactive leadership in bringing people together around a shared vision for the site’s future.”
This project is on the heels of Emmons McNaught’s work restoring another historic location in Greendale: the former Stelzner family dairy barn, on Loomis Road along the Oak Leaf Trail, into the Root River Barn and Farmhouse. The two-story farmhouse is now a three-bedroom Airbnb, while restoration continues on the barn.
Historic structures “represent something very significant in the community. They are the last remnant of rural history life in our suburban metropolitan area,” Emmons McNaught says. “If you look back to why Greendale was established in 1938, it was designed as a ‘Greenbelt’ community that represents how we are supposed to live in relationship to the land and protect green spaces.”
