From court to farm: Attorney uses skills to run fall attraction

Lark Ranch, owned by attorney Matt Lark, now has three locations in Indiana: Loogootee, Greenfield and Lanesville. The ranches offer fall attractions such as pumpkin patches and hayrides. Lark says his legal background helps him in running the tourism business. (IL file photo)

There’s a pumpkin patch, corn maze, hayrides, apple cider slushies, lemon shake-ups and more waiting for visitors who make the trip this fall to Lark Ranch in Loogootee, Greenfield or Lanesville.

For attorney and owner Matt Lark, the plan was to stop running the farm once his kids were grown.

But they had other plans.

“They all said that they want to help some, so we’ve continued to today,” Lark said. “We all still work together in the fall.”

Lark first opened Lark Ranch in 2002 in Loogootee after his sons’ school wanted to come to the family farm for field trips.

“After a couple of years of that back in the late ‘90s, we had a lot of parents ask us if they could come back on a weekend,” he recalled. “And so it just kind of grew organically.”

At the time, Lark had a solo practice in personal injury law after a brief stint with a larger firm. He graduated from Valparaiso University School of Law and was admitted to the bar in 1990.

His background as an attorney has helped with many different aspects of business, Lark said. For starters, his legal experience has helped him learn the basic skills of dealing with many different personalities, delegation and problem-solving.

“It helps you with employees and other people you need to deal with because being a lawyer, you have to deal with so many different personalities and try to make conflicting schedules and it makes you learn to kind of deal with more people on broader-base subjects, and then it probably makes you have to delegate your time better,” he said.

The farm

Adam Lark, the second of Lark’s three sons, is in charge of the business side of running the farm. That includes making sure the card machines and online ticket sales are working, plus overseeing marketing.

Kyle Lark, the oldest, takes care of rides and inspections, while Eric Lark, the youngest, takes care of the grounds.

“We’ve all kind of found a little niche we kind of get into that’s related to the business and then we just focus on,” Adam said. “It’s been fun.”

The Loogootee location opened first, followed by Greenfield and Lanesville. The Lanesville location near Louisville used to be a pumpkin patch that the Larks purchased and expanded.

The ranches just hosted their opening weekends on Sept. 23 and 24. While there’s a lot of stress leading up to opening day each year, Adam also said it’s an exciting time.

“I’m just excited for it to get rolling and seeing the people out here having a good time because although it seems like all the work is getting set up, once it’s actually running, it kind of just runs itself,” he said. “We have really great people in place and great policies and stuff where it kind of just all flows. And so that’s what I’m excited for, is the people getting out here and having a good time and seeing the families come together.”

Along with a lot of children’s rides reminiscent of a county fair, the ranches also feature a narrow-gauge railroad. Matt said Lark Ranch is one of the only farms in the U.S. with a real railroad running it, featuring nine different trains.

Giving back

When the farm first opened for visitors, Matt would give out his business card and magnets to parents as a way to advertise himself and grow his practice, rather than purchasing a billboard or TV advertisement.

He said his favorite thing about the farm is hosting families from Riley Hospital for Children.

“It’s really great to see a lot of the disabled children forget their problems for a while and enjoy a train ride or enjoy things on the ranch,” he said.

Lark Ranch is involved with a lot of charity work and has been almost since its beginning, Matt said. For example, a portion of each admission ticket goes to Riley, and if a visitor is or has been a Riley patient in the last five years, they get in for free.

“I get a lot of satisfaction out of, you know, people coming out, forgetting their daily problems and just, you know, enjoying an afternoon with their families and just having a good time,” he said.

Future growth

While the farm is only open on weekends during the autumn season, Adam said the family wants the business to grow. The goal is to get to a point where they are open during the week, then expand into other seasons.

Future farm possibilities include offering a Polar Express train ride and a Santa village during the winter season, and having baby animals on the farm for people to see during the spring season. They’ve already started to open their facilities to corporate rentals during the offseason.

And coming full circle, school field trips still visit the farm, with about 30 to 45 field trips each year to the Loogootee location.

Adam originally didn’t plan to work at the farm, but after graduating from Indiana University Kelley School of Business and taking an offer at a corporate job, he felt he needed to take the opportunity.

“I just saw it growing and I thought, ‘There’s not a lot of people that have these opportunities to continue family businesses, especially one that’s growing,’” he said. “And I thought it’d be stupid to not at least try to invest into my success instead of working for somebody else.”•