For Max Sandvoss ’02 and his brother, Trystan, the chores associated with making small-batch artisanal cheese typically begin before dawn and, during western New York’s cold, snowy winters, end well after dark.
Their First Light Farm and Creamery in East Bethany, New York, a rural town midway between Rochester and Buffalo, is a long way from Hollywood, where Trystan was a producer and Max a film and television actor. The seed for their career change grew out of long conversations during an extended vacation in the Pacific Northwest. They fantasized about having a farm and living an agrarian lifestyle. Max began acting in college and found work (as Steve Sandvoss, his birth name) soon after arriving in Hollywood; he starred in Latter Days (2003) and appeared opposite Jennifer Aniston in Rumor Has It (2005). He says, “Some people work for years as bankers so they can afford to be painters. I’d made a little money and I thought, why should we wait until we retire to do the work we really want to do?” (To underline his new identity as a farmer, he changed his first name to Max.)
Now they look after a herd of more than 100 Nubian and Alpine goats. The goats’ milk, along with organic milk from a neighbor’s Jersey cows, underlies a variety of cheeses and other products the brothers sell in area farmers’ markets and upmarket grocery stores. Their wares, including three varieties of chèvre, cheddar, jack, feta, and cheddar curds, plus cream-top Jersey yogurt and bottled cream-top Jersey milk, are prized by local consumers and have recently become available through a weekly “dairy share” program. “I’m so much more fulfilled now,” Max says. “I think to myself, this is what job satisfaction is supposed to feel like.”
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