Wyatt LeFever (left) helps Berry Water Gardens employees separate fish and bullfrogs.
Humble Beginnings
It all started in the 1940s, and it started with bullfrogs.
Like many people in the south, E.W. Berry (great-great-grandfather of the current owners of Blue Ridge) enjoyed the occasional meal of fried frog legs. However, you couldn’t swing by the grocery store and pick up some frog legs for dinner, you had to harvest them yourself.
Harvesting bullfrogs, a practice commonly known as “frog gigging”, was a dirty and time-consuming endeavor. A few hours could be spent walking along creek banks, searching for frogs, with only 15 or 20 frogs to show for your efforts.
E.W. sensed an opportunity. He decided to raise his own bullfrogs in captivity, and sell them to his friends and neighbors. He dug a few small ponds with a mule and dirt pan, filled them with water, and stocked them with bullfrog tadpoles.
E.W. Berry with mule and slide cart, used to transport bullfrogs and tadpoles across short distances.
As the tadpoles matured into frogs, E.W. purchased some feeder goldfish from the local dime store to feed to the frogs. After some initial success, the frogs steadily disappeared from his ponds. The goldfish, however, hung around and continued to reproduce.
Out of frogs and with no other options, he began to harvest the goldfish and sell them back to the local dime store. And so Berry Water Gardens, the first aquaculture business of our family, was born.
Berry Water Gardens evolved into a wholesaler, delivering goldfish, tropical fish and hard goods to pet shops and chain stores. They serviced 8 states and employed over 50 people, reaching their peak in the 1960’s.
Early construction of our first greenhouse-covered ponds.
Blue Ridge is Born
Wyatt LeFever, grandson of E.W. Berry, had been working full time as a buyer and grower for Berry Water Gardens. Convinced of the growth potential of the ornamental fish industry, he started his own business, Blue Ridge Fish Hatchery.
After a few years spent developing his goldfish stock, Wyatt began looking for ways to expand his product line. He learned of beautiful and colorful pond fish, known as “nishikigoi” or “koi”, that were being raised in Japan. In 1965, he placed an order for 300 three to four inch Japanese koi.
After a few days in transit, they arrived in North Carolina with only 10% of the shipment alive. Wyatt placed what was left of the shipment into a pond to grow out for brood stock. Of the original 300 koi, only three survived to sexual maturity.
A few years after their arrival in the U.S., the three surviving Japanese koi were used to spawn Blue Ridge’s first crop of koi.
The initial reaction from businesses in the water gardening industry was disappointing. Although the koi were colorful, no one knew what they were or how to care for them. Interest was slow and sales were low.
Koi Catch On
Wyatt was undeterred. He continued to spawn and raise new crops of koi, selling what little he could to keep his business afloat. After years of declining sales, Berry Water Gardens shut its doors, allowing Wyatt to concentrate full time on his new passion, farming and raising koi.
In 1975, Wyatt’s brother, Rick, and his oldest son, Randy, joined the company. By this time, knowledge of koi had spread throughout the pond and water gardening industry, and the demand was steadily increasing. Blue Ridge was positioned to be the leader in a burgeoning market.
At its peak, our flagship production farm held 64 ponds and over 50 surface acres of water.
Growth and Expansion
The next 15 years saw the rapid growth of the Koi and Goldfish industry, with Blue Ridge Fish Hatchery leading the way. In less than 3 decades, Blue Ridge had grown from one man’s start-up to a national supplier of Koi and Goldfish, employing over 20 people and shipping fish to all 50 states of the US.
In the early 1990s, we once again changed the face of the Koi industry when we crossbred Koi with long-fin Indonesian carp to create what is now known throughout the industry as “Butterfly Koi.” Read more at The Butterfly Koi Story.
Blue Ridge remained a leading producer in the Koi and Goldfish industry through the early 2000s. At the peak of our fish production, Blue Ridge maintained over 200 ponds across six separate farms. This allowed us to provide a steady supply of high-quality Koi, Butterfly Koi, and Goldfish to businesses across the nation.
A New Generation
Today, Randy and Rick watch happily from retirement as ownership and control of the company has been passed to Randy’s sons, Casey and Josh LeFever.
Rick’s retirement brought to a close the era of Blue Ridge hatching and raising all of our own fish for sale, and so we have pivoted to an import and resale model.
We are now proud to partner with Aquamade, a collective of Koi, Butterfly Koi, and Goldfish breeders employing advanced technology and biosecure methods to bring a new era to the coldwater ornamental industry.