Six years ago, Sally Watkinson and Doug Posey knew something wasn’t adding up: a 500 square foot Brooklyn apartment — plus a baby on the way.

“I just had a sense that we would have to do something else, other than both working corporate jobs, once our daughter was born,” recalls Posey, an attorney at the time. “I was looking to start a business not geographically based, but more lifestyle based.”

Life happened, and today Watkinson and Posey are the owners of Audrey’s Farmhouse + The Greenhouses in the hamlet of Wallkill, south of the Catskill foothills. In just a handful of years, they transformed an existing B&B into an upstate darling, broadening its appeal with a coveted events venue, restaurant, and — spoiler alert — more on the horizon.

How much of this was part of the plan? Not even half of it. It all began in May 2015. Answering the call toward greener pastures, Posey stumbled onto LoopNet, a website for commercial real estate, where one listing had all the answers: Audrey’s Farmhouse, a B&B that opened in 1987 inside a charming 1740 farmhouse covered with cedar shingles and a red tin roof. For Watkinson and Posey, who intended to keep their full-time jobs in the city, it was a risk with reassurances; it came with a year’s worth of reservations on the books, not to mention an owner’s cottage right on the property.

They would have a place to live and work — and they would have work cut out for them.

“Financially we were completely ill-prepared for the endeavor,” admits Posey. “We drained the retirement account, took all the cash we had, and bought the thing.” They had little margin for anything other than to keep the business going. They hit the ground running.

The first few months were a blur. “What did we do first?” Doug thinks out loud to himself. “I don’t know if I remember — it’s like a trauma that you blocked out.”

But Sally had an eye for it. With over two decades in pocket as a visual merchandiser for boldfaced brands like Ann Inc. and Agnès b., she knew how to create atmosphere. Working with the lightest budget, her goal was simple: reveal the bones of the architecture, let the farmhouse feel like a farmhouse.

And so they exposed beams, peeled away carpet, painted walls and even floors. “I would be in the office in the city designing a room, and Doug would be Upstate and would execute that vision,” says Sally. “It didn’t happen overnight, and we took a few beatings — some people just weren’t happy with us!”

Their greatest advantage was also their greatest struggle: those built-in bookings, the guests who’d booked their stay with the previous owners, arrived with different expectations; not every guest loved the new pared back aesthetic. Sally and Doug were surprised. Perhaps they tried to pull off a blush painted room too soon (millennial pink wouldn’t peak for another year), but did folks really miss those teal walls or that 23-year-old carpeting?

With the self-possession of cast iron, not to mention Dalai Lama-levels of customer service, they listened and learned. And to smooth over the growing pains in their first year, they decided no guest should pay if they didn’t actually want to stay — and some really didn’t. “We were like, going to use [their] booking money to buy groceries for our kid!” says Doug. “But still, we would give them refunds because they were so unhappy.”

With sturdy character, they worked and worked and worked until, about a year into the venture, things just started working.

As the existing bookings trickled away, new clientele with fresh expectations flocked to the property. By then, Doug, without a culinary back- ground, transformed the food program, scrapping the former owners’ Shoprite deliveries for ingredients from Hudson Harvest, a local distributor. Breakfast went from standard to superb as items like plump banana breads, five-inch-high quiche, and thick stacks of bacon made their way to the table. They lost money on those breakfasts (local ingredients don’t come cheap) but it all paid off in the long run; guests ate it up, posted the spread on Instagram, and drummed up free marketing.

Now living in the Hudson Valley full-time, they formed roots in the community, finished the bulk of their renovations, and racked up exposure on blogs and print magazines. “By the summer of 2016, it was booked up on the weekends until the summer of 2017. People were like why is it so booked? and we were like, we don’t know, there are only 5 rooms!”

Things were adding up quickly. Having out- grown the owner’s cottage (they eventually welcomed their second child, a son), they turned the owners cottage into a standalone booking, and enhanced the land by converting a 30-year-old chlorine pool into a natural swimming pond. Then, in 2017, they let their eyes wander across the road where a 1950’s flower nursery needed some nurturing. To meet demand, they expanded their footprint.

Gathering support from the community and securing a loan through a mix of equity and debt capital, they transformed the property into The Greenhouses, a separate events venue with additional guestrooms that flank a wild garden and an original hoop house. Doug’s breakfasts evolved into dinners, served at their restaurant, Green- house Kitchen. It wasn’t long before they were hosting wedding after wedding and holiday dinners for 150 guests.

By 2019, their itty-bitty B&B was something else entirely — it was theirs.

“It was like, oh my god, we were looking at the paperwork and 50 people worked here last year, and you know, it’s a real business at that point,” says Doug. “In 36 months, it went from trying to buy groceries and trying to not have the guests cancel their booking, to like, this full-on enterprise that is now continuing to grow and is kind of self- funding its growth.”

And grow it will: Sally and Doug will soon open a new property nearby. Called Old Mill, the retreat sits on 24 acres with a giant pool, a three acre lake, and the capacity to sleep upwards of 50 guests throughout cottages, carriage houses, and a main farmhouse.

And as big as they get, they’ve never drifted from their path — not just a new lifestyle, but a new foothold on life.

Find @audreysfarmhouse in Wallkill