Beauties & Hardships

Although an unusual name for a farm, owner Mitsos Tsiganos (nicknamed Michigan) isn’t your average farmer. When not cultivating his delicious organic watermelon and crispy lettuce, he’s cultivating his music, poetry, philosophy, and love of the fine arts.

Throughout the years, Beauties & Hardships has become much more than a farm. It’s a bohemian cabinet of wonders, displaying an expansive collection. Amid the array of 19th and 20th-century items are original movie posters, paintings, antique furniture, pinball machines, watches, and more. 

Much of the collection was sourced from bazaars, gifted or collected. The farm’s main two-story mansion and three outhouses are filled with wondrous memorabilia dedicated to local and international folklore. The walls outside are painted in bright, Caribbean style colors, with philosophical observations and snippets of wisdom written in calligraphy. One reads “It’s never early. It’s always late,” and another “Sometimes you’re a face, and sometimes a landscape.” Behind each item, there’s a story. 

The cornucopia of objects could easily fill a small museum. However, Beauties & Hardships is none of that. It’s a private collection assembled with love and personal care over the decades.

It’s a small natural and artistic oasis, where Mitsos Tsiganos and a handful of friends will sometimes gather for an informal movie showing, poetry readings, a live music night, or for long conversations under a canopy of grapevines.