Photograph by Mary Berle
More than 200 sheep roam the grassy hills of this Great Barrington farm named for founder Lila Berle. Forty years after Lila began her flock, the land has now passed into the stewardship of her daughter Mary—a Berkshires-born educator who formerly served as the principal of Muddy Brook Elementary in Great Barrington, and as the chief educator of the Norman Rockwell Museum.
At Lila’s, sheep are bred for “soft, strong, and bouncy” wool. “It’s really special wool, sort of rare and unknown,” said Mary. “Because my mom grew this flock over 40 years with her own selection criteria, you can’t say, ‘Oh, that’s a Merino.’ It’s a totally unique Berkshire product.”
Once the wool is sheared, it enters a hyperlocal supply chain: Green Mountain Spinnery, a worker-owned co-op in Putney, Vermont, processes the wool, and Muriel’s of Vermont, a mother-and-son garment business, knits the wool into sweaters. Local economic interdependence, said Mary, is “a defining piece for the farm. It’s the only way we want to do it.”
