We've been at this for longer than most of our clients have lived at the addresses we visit every Monday. Here's how Fairway Grounds came to be, and who you'll actually meet when the truck pulls up.
In 1987, after ten years on the maintenance crew at a country club in Millbrook, Walter Hemsby bought a used John Deere mower, a faded green pickup truck, and a Rolodex of six former members who had asked him if he'd mow their houses when he finished his shift. By the end of that first summer he had fifteen clients. By the end of the third, forty. By 1995, he had stopped answering his own phone because the crew had grown to six and someone needed to dispatch.
We've held to the same standard through the whole climb: the blades are sharp, the cut is high, the bed lines are clean, and the hard surfaces are spotless before we leave. That's the country-club standard Walter brought home from Millbrook. It's still what we do every single visit.
Today the crew is twelve. The route covers ten towns across the Hudson Valley. The equipment shed has grown to five trucks, a flatbed trailer, and a pair of commercial mowers. But the answering-the-phone-before-7-AM part is still Walter. And the sharp-blade-speech is still the first thing every new hire hears.
Founder & Head Groundskeeper
Walter founded Fairway Grounds Co. in 1987 after a decade of working on the maintenance crew at a country club in Millbrook. He still walks every new property personally, still writes quotes on a clipboard, and still answers the dispatch line before 7 AM most mornings. His two non-negotiables are sharp blades and proper mowing height — ask the crew, they’ve heard both speeches.
If you call us on a Tuesday morning, odds are Walter picks up. If he doesn't, he's already on a property — probably running a string trimmer himself, because three of the younger crew are home sick. That's how he's always done it.
“Cut clean. Edged sharp. Always on time. You do those three things, and you don't have to sell anything. The work does it.”
Twelve full-time team members. Five crew leads. Zero subcontractors. These are the faces you'll actually see each week.
Rosa joined the crew in 2011 and took over day-to-day operations in 2019. If you get a text about a rescheduled visit, an estimated arrival window, or a service confirmation, it came from Rosa. She runs the Tuesday and Thursday routes herself and keeps the route book that’s become something of a company artifact — seventeen years of hand-annotated property notes.
Scheduling, dispatch, client communication
Marcus heads up the aeration and overseeding program in spring and fall. He ran a small organic turf operation in Poughkeepsie before joining us and brought with him a real depth of knowledge about soil biology, seed selection, and amendment timing. If you’ve had a spectacular overseed result from us, Marcus probably picked the blend.
Aeration, overseeding, soil amendment
Jenna has run Route Three — mostly historic properties in Rhinebeck and Red Hook — since 2020. She has a careful hand around stonework, old foundations, heirloom plantings, and anything a string trimmer might damage. On the crew she’s the go-to for properties where “careful” is the whole job description.
Detail trimming, historic properties, stone work
Tyler runs the shop and keeps every mower, trimmer, blower, and aerator in the fleet running. Our blades get rotated and sharpened every two weeks on his schedule, and his Tuesday afternoon bench sessions on the walk-behinds are the reason the 21-inch Toros have lasted as long as they have. Mechanics are invisible — until they aren’t — and Tyler is why our visible work looks right.
Mower tuning, blade rotation, shop maintenance
Priya came on during the summer of 2022 as a seasonal hire and became full-time in 2023. She runs the Wednesday route, handles most of the Kingston and Saugerties properties, and has become one of the fastest clean-edgers on the crew. Clients on her route regularly mention her by name in feedback.
Mowing, edging, client interaction