Broadwater Farm gained its name from the lake created when the adjoining Pickering Creek was dammed. Knickerbocker Ice Company harvested ice here for many years. The lake disappeared when the dam was swept away in the 1940's.

The property was a dairy farm from the 1700's until the 1940's when it was sold to a developer who divided the house into 11 apartments and converted the springhouse and pool house into apartments. The trophy hall burned in the early 1960's and the owner reconstructed it as a four unit apartment building bringing to 17 the total number of rental units on the property.

The Carmelite Order of the Catholic Church purchased the apartment complex on 55 acres in 1985 and converted the former trophy hall from a four unit apartment building into a convent which housed 12 cloistered Carmelite nuns. The 11units in the former main house were used as a rectory. In 1990, troubled by high maintenance costs, the Carmelites sold the property to Liz and Bill Andersen and relocated to Spokane, WA.

The Andersens have been gradually working to put the Farm back into production. Among other work, they have cleared overgrown fields which had not been farmed since the 1940's, substantially expanded the orchard, fenced the pastures and acquired another 55 acre adjoining parcel. They began a pastured livestock operation on the property in 2006 with the acquisition of a small herd of red angus cattle.