White Star Farm - Leander

White Star Farm - Leander

By Carson Barker Saturday, 07 October 2006

From homeland to farm land

Richard Luttrell’s farm is a picture-perfect emerald grove lined with 98 fruiting pecan trees. A smoothly paved road meanders from his street up to his house on a hill’s crest. The trees provide plenty of shade and carry a gentle breeze under their leaves. For the past seven years, Luttrell has called this home.

However, when he lost his job last year, he decided to try to make a living out of the land and the trees he loves.

“I worked for an insurance company for 20 years until I lost my job,” Luttrell said. “I love working with my pecan trees so I figured why not try to make a living out of it?”

Perhaps it was fate that Futtrell discovered his property, known as the White Star Farm.

“I was driving home from work one day and I saw the white pipe fence line and the rows of pecan trees, and I fell in love with it instantly. That was 1999, but I’ve never tried to make it into a fulltime job until now,” Luttrell said.

Luttrell has spent thousands of dollars on more than a dozen pieces of equipment for everything from tree shakers to harvesters to nut catchers and an irrigation system.

After the whole process of harvesting and cleaning the pecans is done, he goes above and beyond the normal procedure to give his pecans a distinctive, White Star flavor.

“My process is unique to Texas growers. I rinse the pecans to get rid of the bitter taste, then I dehydrate them to make them crisp again. I don’t know of any other Texas growers that do that. It’s labor intensive, but it produces a much better product.”

Luttrell does all the work by himself with a little help at times from some of his family.

He also makes gift baskets filled with his pecans, pecan pies, syrup, cooking oil and even pecan soap he purchases from a company in New Mexico.

Luckily for pecan fans, White Star Farm’s hard-working trees are just about ripe for pickin’.

“Harvest time is usually between September and December,” Luttrell said, “but trees don’t read calendars.”

White Star Farm will be open 3 to 7 p.m. daily when the harvest is ready.

“I love it out here,” Luttrell said. “I get to work outside; its nice and quiet and a great community. I mean... just look at it.”

Specialties

• Shelled pecans
• Flavored pecans
• Kinloch Pecan oil
• New Mexico Pecan soap
• Pecan syrup
• Small batch custom cracking/shelling

White Star Farm, 716 S Gabriel Drive, Leander, TX, 512-260-5074