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OLD ZIONSVILLE, Pa. (AP) — What may turn out to be the last wedding at Meadowbrook Farms features a Swiss groom. He assured family and friends making the international trip this September that the picturesque 5-acre venue in rural Upper Milford Township offers "neutral ground." It's a Swiss joke with an ironic twist. Meadowbrook owner Paul Sarver's dream of creating a choice rustic wedding and special events venue has upset neighbors and collided with zoning requirements. His mail carrier has started calling him "the most hated man in Upper Milford." Neutral ground, Meadowbrook Farms is not. In traditionally agricultural but evolving areas of southwestern Lehigh Valley and beyond, entrepreneurial property owners are looking for new ways to live off the land. Barn weddings and other agritourism activities are one option. But such aspirations don't always take into consideration regulatory realities and the peace and quiet others value. Supervisor George DeVault — a farmer himself — has said the township is all for agritourism entrepreneurs, which he believes preserve open space, enhance the community and support other local businesses. But only if they play by the rules. "There's a lot more involved than setting up Party City and putting up a sign that says, 'We're open,' " DeVault said. "You can't jump the gun." Four years ago, Sarver and his wife fell in love with Meadowbrook's early 19th-century farmhouse and bank barn, remnants of a 250-acre farm along Vera Cruz Road. They bought the property and moved into the farmhouse. Their friends loved it, too. Two farmers down the street asked to get married there last fall; guests ate at tables Sarver carpentered and danced late into the night beneath the barn's vaulted ceiling and wooden beams. Such weddings are in vogue as many young couples prefer bucolic, unpretentious affairs. Farm weddings tripled from 2009 to 2015, though they still made up only about 6 percent of weddings. And together with weddings in historic buildings and homes, they made up 18 percent of all weddings last year, according to the Knot 2015 Real Weddings Study. Twenty percent of couples used the word "rustic" to describe their weddings in a survey released this year by research company Wedding Report Inc., up from 13 percent in 2012. Recognizing the demand, Sarver poured more than $100,000 into his property, which also includes a two-floor carriage house, detached garage and an in-ground pool with a screened-in cabana. He spent winter nights in the barn with a drum sander, not quitting until the mucus had frozen on the end of his nose. Zionsville Bible Fellowship Church agreed to let Sarver's guests use its nearby parking lot for shuttle service to his barn, less than a quarter-mile up the road. Sarver started advertising Meadowbrook as a venue for 100-plus-guest weddings on the Knot and Wedding Wire websites, and it soon popped up on niche sites such as Rustic Wedding Chic. Sarver lined up about a dozen weddings this year and five for 2017. He thought he was being proactive when he alerted Upper Milford Township to his plans in January. Not exactly. Because he was proposing a commercial use in a rural agricultural zoning district, Sarver needed to go before the Zoning Hearing Board in March. There, to his surprise, his neighbors lined up to protest the venture, arguing that noise and parking issues were a detriment to their quality of life. According to township records, neighbors complained that music and other noise from Sarver's property and the church parking lot could be heard in their homes. Nancy Edmiston, who lives across Vera Cruz Road from the Sarvers, said "strange people" walked the winding, narrow road during and after events. The DeWire family, which owns property surrounding the Sarvers', said issues with the venue have delayed their own plans to build a dream home. "We bought 50 acres so we wouldn't have this kind of problem," Kim DeWire said last week. "Who wants to deal with a party every weekend? It's so frustrating." State police at Fogelsville have been called to the property at least twice, Township Manager Dan DeLong said. Sarver said he has not been cited, and he questioned accusations that music from the barn could be heard in homes. He also said he was willing to cut the music in the future at 9:30 p.m. On June 1, the zoning board denied the Sarvers' request to operate a banquet hall — the township zoning ordinance doesn't specifically address barn weddings and related social events. The board agreed the wedding venue has and would "clearly alter the essential character of the neighborhood." In its lawsuit, the township said it intends to enforce the decision. Dreams and frustrations Agritourism activity may be increasing because it is one method of keeping a farm economically viable on a shrinking land base, said John Berry, agricultural marketing educator at Penn State Extension. In an increasingly suburban region, barn weddings and the like capitalize on people's yearning for farm experiences. But the new business models run up against the same resistance to change that has existed, well, forever. Berry even recalls pumpkin patch and hayride ventures upsetting neighbors over the volume of traffic. "We live in a highly desirable geographic area," Berry said. "If we want to have open space around us, we must let land owners do what is necessary to maintain a standard of living that allows them to eat, save and send their kids to college." At least in theory, southwestern Lehigh residents do want to support agricultural economic development. Nearly 9 of 10 backed new farm-supportive operations, including agritourism activities, according to a Lehigh Valley Planning Commission survey this year of residents in the East Penn and a portion of the Southern Lehigh school districts. No other new development type garnered as much support; only 10 percent, by comparison, backed more warehouses. Stephanie Stevens of Lower Milford Township plans to open in September a 15-acre events complex on a 270-acre farm along Limeport Pike. Bell Gate Farms will start as a wedding and special events destination, but Stevens hopes to add movie nights, a general store, yoga, cooking classes and more. She imagines "something like a pop-up town, but one that stays." She reached out to neighbors early in the process and they backed her up when she approached Lower Milford last fall. Township officials were demanding but also guided her "every step of the way," she said. The Zoning Hearing Board recently granted a special exception, planning administrator Alene Shafnisky confirmed, clearing the way for Stevens' plan. "The important thing was that (Stevens) came to the township first," Shafnisky said. "People only get into trouble when they don't." On a 60-acre property south of Macungie, Elizabeth and Daniel O'Rourke have planted 21,000 grapevines in the past year. They hope to one day run a preeminent winery and special events center called Domaine Pterion. It would revolve around an 18th-century bank barn, but the O'Rourkes also dream of yoga and ballet classes in outbuildings as well as an outdoor concert venue and an organic garden. Elizabeth O'Rourke thinks getting driveway access permits off St. Peters and Macungie Mountain roads will pose the biggest challenge. "I really haven't pursued it yet," she said. "I'm so nervous." In Vera Cruz, Kathleen Miller and her husband Derek have been hosting weddings and other events since 2011 at the Farmhouse at Buena Vista, their 18-acre property on Main Road East. The Millers appealed to the Upper Milford zoning board before hosting commercial parties as Red Bridge Events. The township granted the commercial use. But like the Sarvers, the Millers are not allowed to host commercial weddings in their historic, repurposed bank barn. Most of the barn's space is on the upper level, and to satisfy federal requirements, the Millers needed to install an elevator or a long, winding ramp around the side. Both options were expensive and would have taken away from the barn's aesthetic charm, Kathleen Miller said. The barn still serves as a nice backdrop for the outdoor weddings and events she hosts along the Leibert Creek, which meanders through the property. But Miller is careful not to mention the barn on her website and is quick to emphasize to prospective customers that it's off limits. Between that and strict PennDOT limitations on parking, Miller often hears "thanks, but no thanks" from prospective clients. For the second consecutive summer, she has only two weddings booked. "You have to love sales to do this," she said. "I've given hundreds of tours. "It's frustrating, but you better do it the right way from the beginning," she said. "There are all kinds of liabilities, and you want to protect yourself." Shrinking farms, vanishing barns Last week, Robert and Kim Nappa submitted permit applications to Allen Township to hold commercial weddings at Barn Swallow Farm on East Bullshead Road. They've spent more than $100,000 renovating a 200-year-old barn and another $100,000 on other improvements to their 12-acre property along the Catasauqua Creek. The phone never stops ringing, Robert Nappa said. Their company, Occasions at Red Barn LLC, has bookings into 2019 and just a few open summer weekends next year. Allen Township officials have been very supportive, Nappa said, and are looking to draft policies addressing adaptive reuse of historic buildings in a 2017 comprehensive plan. "These barns are beautiful, and if they remain unused, they'll collapse," Nappa said. "People can't just come up with $100,000 to repair a barn being used for storage. The township is being really cooperative in realizing that farmers aren't going to rebuild unless they can get their money back." There are fewer than 1,700 barns in Lehigh County, Greg Huber found when he surveyed them in 2013. Huber, who runs Eastern Barn Consultants in Macungie, estimates the county has lost about 300 over the past 20 years — 15 each year. That rate of depletion isn't necessarily alarming, Huber said, but the more rapid loss of farmland means fewer barns are being maintained. He considers barns an "important link to our heritage," but recognizes that's not reason enough for every owner to continue sinking money into costly repairs. He's not against the kind of "adaptive repurpose" Sarver and others have done if it maintains the basic character of the barn. "I'd rather see it still used for farming, but if that's the only way to save the barn, and you save most of the structure, then so be it," he said. Sarver has canceled 12 weddings at Meadowbrook so far, costing him about $25,000 in refunded deposits and compensation to cover inconveniences such as save-the-date cards. Meadowbrook hosted weddings the first three Saturdays in June. And under the agreement with the township, the Sarvers were fined $2,500 for proceeding with the last one and the Sept. 3 wedding with the Swiss groom. "It's the biggest day of their lives," Sarver said. "How are you supposed to cancel weeks, or in some cases days, in advance?" Sarver again went before the zoning board last Monday. This time he requested permission to run a bed-and-breakfast out of the farmhouse. The board indicated it would OK the use. In retrospect, he wishes he had approached the barn plan with a little more finesse. "If I had to do it over, I would have requested a less intensive use," he said. "And I would have gone over and talked to my neighbors sooner. "I just didn't think it would be a problem," he said. ___ Reporter Laurie Mason Schroeder contributed to this story. ___ Online: http://bit.ly/1V7OkEz ___ Information from: The Morning Call, http://www.mcall.com

Barn weddings all the rage, but not all love and happiness