What he really loves, it turns out, is walking these Berkshire hills with his dog, tapping trees in March, and building something that will outlast him.
Above, Mike, his wife Sam, her kids Holden and Finley, and the family dog, Newton. Opposite, Woodlife Ranch in Williamstown, Mike’ s home. It’ s where he started the Woodlife brand.
he completed more than 50 projects from Florida to the Pacific Northwest. The work was grueling, often precarious, and entirely entrepreneurial.
“ We’ ve always been a sales and marketing company,” he says of Patten Properties.“ We knew how to reach people, how to tell a story that made sense, how to price so things sell.”
That instinct— to pivot and to treat a crisis as an opportunity— eventually led Patten to Texas, where he and his team created large, low-density communities such as Texas Grand Ranch in 2015 and Republic Grand Ranch a few years later, each about an hour north of Houston.
“ We didn’ t start out to build a town,” he says.“ But we kind of did. And it’ s been incredibly well-received.” And today? His company is“ doing tremendously well. No debt. Solid footing.”
His son, John, now runs that side of the business; one piece of a multigenerational story that matters deeply to Patten.
Building Something Different
In Texas, Patten rebuilt his company; in the Berkshires, he built something else.
Patten grew up in Stanford, Vermont, and went to school in nearby North Adams, graduating from Drury High School in 1976, and never lost the pull of these hills. In the early 1990s, he bought a 60-acre parcel in South Williamstown, intending it to be his year-round home. Over time, piece by piece, parcel by parcel, he stitched together what is now roughly 1,100 contiguous acres across South Williamstown, Hancock, and New Ashford.
“ I wanted a piece of land big enough to get lost on,” he says,“ and a lodge I loved being in.”
During renovations of the original house on his initial property, Patten uncovered a timber-frame barn hidden beneath Sheetrock and shag carpet. He restored it into a space that feels like an Adirondack lodge: massive beams, an open fireplace, and a sense of rugged, quiet elegance.
He began timbering carefully— most of the property is enrolled in the state’ s Chapter 61 forestry program— and kept intact a stand of sugar maples. That led to tapping trees, building a sugar house, and eventually creating Woodlife Ranch as both property and brand.
Mario Gagliardi, who manages Woodlife’ s agricultural and economic operations, remembers when Patten first called him. Mario is Mike’ s former brother-in-law, so he’ d known Mike for years. But when Patten called him in 2017 with an offer to leave his golf course superintendent job in New Jersey and come manage Woodlife’ s agricultural operations, it wasn’ t nepotism.“ With my agricultural background, he wanted somebody he could trust to manage the property,” Mario says.
Since then, Gagliardi has watched Patten’ s imagination continually expand.“ He’ s constantly sending me ideas,” he says.“ What about this, what about that? It’ s never just settling for selling maple syrup and honey. There are bigger and better things coming.”
The philosophy shows up in deliberate restraint as much as ambition: keeping the maple operation at 1,600 taps, the sustainable yield from his sugar bush; committing to wood-fired syrup production that requires 14 cords of wood each year; and forging partnerships like their collaboration with Bully Boy distillery in Boston, where bourbon barrels season Woodlife’ s bourbonmaple syrup before returning to the distillery to age maple-bourbon.“ It really runs full circle,” Gagliardi says.
“ I always admired what Roxanne Quimby did with Burt’ s Bees,” Patten says.“ We’ d like to take Woodlife to another level.”
Between Two Worlds
Patten splits his time between the Berkshires, Naples, Florida( where his wife’ s younger children attend school), and occasional trips to Texas to advise his son on major acquisitions. It’ s a rhythm he’ s comfortable with, though the Berkshires remain his anchor.
He’ s in the office a few times a week when he is in Texas, Patten says.“ But my son runs it. I’ m there for moral support. I work on my farms, which is what I’ m most passionate about.”
When he’ s at his Berkshire property, his days follow a pattern shaped more by land than by meetings. He walks the property with his red Labrador, Newt. He checks on the sugarhouse operation with Mario. He drives his side-by-side utility vehicle across streams and up wooded trails, surveying the timber stands and the taps that feed the maple operation each spring.
He’ s an avid hunter and angler— the ranch house is filled with mounted game trophies, most of which made it to his dinner table. The property includes ten beehives, several thousand apple trees, berry bushes, peach trees, and a small sawmill.“ We could eat entirely from the land,” he says.
He also owns Galoo Island in Lake Ontario— 2,200 acres with 12 miles of undeveloped shoreline and a 4,000-foot grass airstrip.“ It’ s my favorite place in the world,” he says. He and his son have recently negotiated to put two-thirds of it under conservation easement with the 1000 Islands Land Trust. The island won’ t be developed; like the Berkshire property, it’ s being protected for future generations.
Back in the Berkshires, Patten is also positioning Woodlife as a trailhead for the Shaker Ridge mountain bike trail system being developed nearby.( See article on
Spring 2026 BERKSHIRE MAGAZINE // 67