Our Story

How We Began

It all began 43 years ago, when Marvin and Barbara Lesch moved from Waukesha to the farmlands of Richfield. The long abandoned 1.5-acre orchard consisting of 35 large apple trees was in need of desperate repair, almost as much as the farmstead. All three kids (Samantha, Leo, and Matthew) helped expand the family’s hobby orchard to 3.5 acres early in the 1980’s. Today, we have approximately 550 trees with only a handful of the original trees remaining, including our treasured Wolf River tree that produces apples over two pounds each.  In the early 2000’s, middle son Leo helped expand the orchard another 2 acres with the addition of 20 plus apple varieties. This has ushered in an era of Pine Hill Orchard specializing in nearly forty-five different apple varieties.

Continuing The Family Legacy

Over the years, our retail apple stand near Holy Hill has made quite the numerous improvements as well.  The Lesch family first started selling out of a white trailer and wood paneled station wagon.  Many, many Dodge caravans later, we finally acquired the Holy Hill property and recycled a Cousin’s Sub mobile vendor building to officially place a roof over people’s heads.  This building helped eliminate our daily setup and teardowns that were extremely taxing on Barb and everyone that would lend a helping hand. 

The Lesch’s are going on 3 generations as Samantha and Jason Sutherland’s three kids (Brooke, Aylea, Izak) pick up more of the workload. Matthew and Kim anchor the expansion into the farmer’s market realm in Whitefish Bay and Oconomowoc. Annually, Marvin and Samantha along with other helpers, clock in close to 1000 hours on pruning the trees, which allows for proper light and air to flow through the orchard. Doing so allows Pine Hill Orchard to use significantly less commercial sprays compared to other orchards.