Palmer Farm is named for the couple who adopted it: Margaret Rajic Palmer and Matt Palmer. “We’re hard users of the kitchen, three times a day,” Margaret says, so their renovation of the property’s 19th-century farmhouse prioritized that worn-out space. They economized by mostly keeping the existing layout, aside from moving the fridge a few steps around a corner. Prepainted Shaker-style cabinetry from The Home Depot (glammed up with brass hardware) tucks under wooden countertops; floating shelves and ripply subway tile air out the wall above. | CREDIT: MARGARET RAJIC
By Joanna Linberg | August 06, 2023
On Palmer Farm in in Barrington Hills, a pastoral suburb outside Chicago, Margaret Rajic Palmer and husband Matt Palmer have no need to binge-watch TV. They have chickens.
“These girls are some of the busiest, most dramatic little creatures you could meet,” Margaret says, laughing as she pulls open the Dutch door of the 1,600-square-foot farmhouse. Sure enough, at the creak of the hinge, seven hens (and one “oops, I guess you’re a rooster”) abandon the grass they’ve been pecking. The whole mob speed-walks to the door, squawking their demands for a treat. Except Birdie, who pulls her head out of the ground a full minute later, notices she’s alone and careens wildly across the driveway before ducking into the flock like she hopes no one will notice.
A little late and a little uncooperative is Birdie’s way, Margaret says. She would know: She and Matt watch the flock’s antics with the riveted attention most of us gave Ted Lasso. They live and work on the 5-acre farm (she as an interiors photographer, he in the tech field) and are slowly rehabbing the property, dedicating themselves to morning and evening chores, planting vegetables, collecting eggs, and learning to live by the sun and seasons.
If this all sounds like your favorite daydream, Margaret and Matt understand. Both in their late 20s, the Palmers spent the previous decade embracing the urban hustle of New York City and Chicago. They had full work schedules and weekends packed with concerts and coffee dates. But in the back of their minds, they had a five-year plan to give it all up for land and the slow life. Margaret even started horseback riding lessons.
Then the pandemic hit. “All the reasons we were staying in the city—the restaurants, the people—that went away,” Margaret says. “We found ourselves visiting my mom in Barrington every weekend and falling in love with everything it had to offer.”
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