Sure, the expansive property is lined with beautiful old stone walls and buildings. Scenic vistas stretch out over the rolling hills.

But St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer in some ways resembles a company campus — intent on eco-friendly, sustainable enterprises. Operating the long-running Trappist Preserves company and the Holy Rood Guild, which designs and crafts liturgical vestures, pursuing forestry endeavors, raising honeybees, and running a retreat house and a gift shop, it seems as if entrepreneurs are in charge here.

But these well-educated businessmen just happen to be cloistered Roman Catholic monks of the Cistercian order — Trappists — looking to ensure their 2,000-acre abbey can support itself.

The abbey's first forays into commercial enterprises involved agriculture — stretching back as far as the 1950s, when the abbey was a celebrated Holstein dairy farm. The cows long gone, 360 acres are now leased to environmentally responsible area farmers.

The fruit preserves venture, which began in 1954 as a way to use a bounty of mint in the abbey's herb garden, is the shining star of the monastery's business. The jam recipe came from a neighbor in Spencer, and soon it was being sold by department stores in gourmet gift packs. “It turned into its own industry,” said Brother Robert, who heads up Trappist Preserves and has also run the abbey's farm and forestry program.

“Around here, we don't like to mention Smuckers,” he quipped.

A look inside the Trappist Preserves jam kitchen — out of sight from the public — is truly fascinating. It is not just clean, but pristine. The sun shines in as fully robed monks, wearing plastic gloves, push pallets filled with cases of jam around the work area as the machinery hums.

The jam is cooked from 7 to 11 a.m. each day. The “kitchen” is actually not a kitchen at all, but an automated factory. Brother Daniel boils the fruit, operating a vacuum cooker on a mezzanine above the 10 or so workers below, including two lay workers. Another machine blasts the space between the jars and caps with hot water to prevent bacterial contamination. Alarms go off if a cap is not fastened on securely enough before it heads down the conveyer belt.

“We call him ‘Brother Robot,' ” Brother Robert said jokingly over the din. The monks make up to 700 cases of jam a day, 12 jars per case.

“We try not to make more than one flavor per day, as they lose about a half-hour if they have to do a changeover,” he explained, to clean all the machinery.

On one recent day, they were making blueberry jam. Rolls of blueberry Trappist Preserve labels at one end of conveyer belt are coiled up and ready to label 120 jars per minute. If the labeler goes haywire, and, for example, two labels are affixed to a single jar, the product goes to the needy, usually to Jeremiah's Kitchen in Worcester, Brother Robert said.

In a large warehouse down the hall from the kitchen, cases of jam are stored. A top rafter holds a year's worth of sugar — bags and bags of it. “We buy it that way to get the best price,” Brother Robert said. On this day, a truck from Hannaford's supermarket backed up to the loading dock to pick up cases of jam.

Not far from the jam kitchen is the carpeted Holy Rood Guild showroom.

Mannequins display vestments such as chasubles, stoles and albs. Father Timothy, guild director, estimates that hundreds of chasubles — the long robe-like garment often worn by clergy — are sold each year, as well as thousands of other items worldwide. Everything is hand-stitched, he said, and custom orders can take up to two months. The Rood Guild employs eight monks and 20 laypeople — all experienced tailors who will take an item apart and start over rather than sacrifice quality, according to Father Timothy.

Retreat house rentals and farmland leasing aside, the monks' eyes are also on the skies.

Brother Robert, driving his Toyota Prius, took me to the site of a wind-speed meter he said will help determine whether wind turbines can help power the abbey. Another field is being eyed for a solar farm, where the monks hope to generate power and sell it back to National Grid.

“We hope the solar panels and rent from fields can pay for our electricity,” Brother Robert said.

Twelve-hundred acres of abbey land comprise a registered tree farm, where the monks practice managed forestry of red oak, pine, beech and hickory trees. They consult with the state Department of Forestry and had retired W.R. Grace forest manager Hugo Pawek draw up a plan for sustainable yield and improvement. Selective cuts are made to ensure the health of the forest.

“All the trees are treated with reverence,” said Brother Robert. “If you don't cut them, trees fight for nourishment and sunlight.”

In 1984, as a further effort to be self-sustaining, the abbey switched from oil heat to a wood-burning “energy center,” that burns at such a high temperature the wood turns to steam, not smoke. Wood chips are about one-fourth of the cost of oil, Brother Robert said.

Amid all of these eco-projects, Brother Robert said, there is room for another product.

“Brother Brian is taking classes in brew making,” he told me. And the monks have done their market research. “There's a whole cult of beer drinking — that's the market we're going for,” Brother Robert said.

Watch for Spencer Trappist Ale — a joint venture with the monks at Chimay Brewery in Belgium — at a liquor store near you.