Saddlehill Cellars, a South Jersey winery, to open its restaurant with a star chef

A farm, smack in the middle of South Jersey suburbia, will soon become a culinary destination.

Saddlehill Cellars, at the intersection of Evesham, White Horse, and Springdale Roads on Voorhees Township’s border with Cherry Hill, is the passion project of Marlton-born entrepreneur Bill Green. Three years ago, Green bought the 70 acres of preserved farmland known as Stafford Farm, named after John Stafford, a bodyguard of George Washington.

The property now includes a 27-acre vineyard, a winery overseen by winemaker Peter Szerdahelyi, and the Farmhouse Kitchen, a 7,000-square-foot tasting room for farm-to-table meals. It will be helmed by Daniel Stern, the Cherry Hill-born chef who revived Le Bec-Fin two decades ago and led a series of fine-dining restaurants including Rae and Gayle. Stern’s signature was R2L, which opened in early 2010 on the 37th floor of Two Liberty Place and closed in 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic.

Saddlehill has set an April 10 opening date for its tasting room, and the reservation book will open March 14.

Green, 65, said he resurrected an old hobby during the pandemic: He bought a horse.

The horse needed a stall.

Green was looking online for one somewhere between Center City and the Jersey Shore when he noticed that an auction in October 2020 for the farmland had failed to attract the $900,000 minimum bid. The property had been sold by the Stafford descendants in the early 2000s, then ignored for 17 years and was blighted, he said. He decided to pony up the money anyway.

» READ MORE: Saddlehill and the movement to preserve land in N.J.

“I said, ‘I’m just going to couple my love for horses and nature and give back to the community that I raised my family in,’” Green said. “We were off to the races. It has been a three-year labor of love — lots of blood, sweat, and tears and we put together a great team of people.”

Besides the vineyard and pastures — now home to four horses, four alpacas and a 12-stall barn — the fields and greenhouses are being planted with fruits and vegetables for the tasting room. There’s a 600-tree orchard, too. An apiary is yielding honey and beeswax.

Though there are restrictions on the property, he said, “one was as long as it’s agriculturally related, you can do it. Wine and planting a vineyard met that bill.” Saddlehill began planting its own vines in 2021; it takes several years for them to mature.

Agritourism is one of the fastest-growing sectors in agriculture in New Jersey, said Devon Perry, executive director of the Garden State Wine Growers Association. She said Saddlehill is “bringing a corner of South Jersey back to life.”

Green said he did a lot of research to see if there would be an audience for wine and food. “We can’t find another winery in the country that has our demographic,” he said. “We have 150,000 people in a 12-mile radius and we’re only 12 miles from Center City Philly.”

Saddlehill’s economics seem sound to Green, who has made his fortune in various ventures, such as private investment (Crestar Partners) and retail (Interline Brands): “If you buy a $30 bottle of wine [while dining], that’s $120 in a restaurant,” he said. “Our bottle of wine is $30. My goal is for a couple to be able to come in, eat, and drink a bottle of wine, all for 100 bucks.”