Landowner Stories

Appreciating Nature's Intelligent Design

Lemons Brook Farm II Conservation Easement in Bethel Township, Sullivan County, New York protects 45 acres of farm, forest, and wetland in Bethel Township

When Rudy Magnan was in his twenties, he knew he wanted to invest in some land in rural New York State. Family friends told him about a beautiful property in Bethel, Sullivan County, NY close to the Bethel Woods Performing Arts Center, the site of the 1969 Woodstock Festival.

Rudy visited the property and befriended the owner, a man who used the land as a dairy farm and had never wanted to sell it. Over the years, Rudy made a point to visit the owner and help around the farm. The farmer eventually agreed to sell the land to Rudy, provided he could live out the rest of his life in the home on the property. The farmer passed away in the 1960s, and Rudy got to work restoring the house and determining what he wanted to do his 46 acres of land.

Caring for the 'River of Dreams'

How Tom Soja, an “escapee” from NYC, became the de facto “keeper of the river” of a long stretch of the East Branch of the Delaware near Hancock, NY, and then protected much of that land with a conservation easement, is an interesting story.

“I’ve always been into cleaning up things, usually messes created before I was born...and whenever I would clean up vacant properties along the river, pretty soon I’d be able to buy those properties. It was a nice thing that was happening," says Tom. After moving to Hancock, Tom began cleaning up a two-mile stretch of river downstream. Eventually, he was able to buy parts of an old railroad corridor adjacent to the river, as well as a stretch of river including Partridge Island.

Lemons Brook Farm: Protecting a Childhood Home

Delaware Highlands Conservancy conservation easement at Bethel, New York farm

How did a salmon fisherman from Alaska happen to be the first person to protect a 119-acre parcel of land in the town of Bethel, NY, just a stone’s throw from the Bethel Woods Arts Center and the original site of the Woodstock Festival?

It just so happens that Lou Barr, a former marine biologist, grew up in Kauneonga Lake, NY, where his mother worked at the local post office for many years. He loved to roam the woods around his family home, hunting, trapping and fishing. “I spent every moment I had outside. That was all that interested me. When school was over, I came home and walked the land. Of course, in my growing up days, I never thought about whose land was whose. I just went as far as I could reach.”

From Camping to Organic Farming

Forty years ago, when Gary and Shary Skoloff fell in love with a wild tract of land in northern Susquehanna County, PA, little did they dream that they would one day protect their 200 acres, plus an adjacent tract they acquired in New York State, from subdivision or development.

In winter 1968, they saw an ad in an NJ newspaper for a farm in a remote corner of northern PA and decided to take a look. The young couple, their 10-month-old baby in tow, came north to hike and camp, looking for an acre of land away from crowded campgrounds with “bumper-to-bumper tents.” They fell in love with what they found (and decided to buy); 200 acres of farm and woodlands. “It was only 200 times the size we could afford!” says Shary.

Stewards of Barn Bass Sanctuary

Growing up in small New England towns, Anita Edelberg was a “country girl” ‘til she met David Orlow and moved to Brooklyn, where they undertook the project of restoring a broken-down city house in Park Slope.

Yet they dreamed of getting back to the country, buying a few acres of land. In 1985 they saw an ad for a farm in Northeastern PA and came up to look. “We walked the perimeter looking for what might be the ‘downside,’ and we didn’t see anything but just beauty, raw beauty,” says Anita. “We fell in love with it.” An attractive property of 98 acres, set high in the rolling hills of Wayne County, with dense woodlands, open meadows, and a stream running through it, it was much more land than they’d expected to buy.