THURSDAY, DECEMBER 25, 2003

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 25, 2003

A gift for all

seasons

This has been a banner week for easements in

Rappahannock County. One of them, the historic

Montpelier estate in our county, has come a long way since May 2000 when it was the ' scene of teenage vandalism and destruction that outraged our rural community.

Montpelier began another chapter of its nearly 300-year history last week by becoming the centerpiece of a major land conservation gift (399 acres) which brings with it the added attraction of an annual increase in state financial aid to Rappahannock County's schools.

This Georgian mansion has been sold out of the James W. Fletcher family which had owned it for the past several decades. On Aug. 25 of this year, it sold for $2,350,000 to Montpelier LLC of Catonsville, Md., donor of the easement, and Paul F. Larner.

Iij addition to Montpelier's gift, five other key county properties also got easement protection, including the largest amount of acreage, 604 acres of Cliff Miller's farm in Sperryville. All total, 1,474 more acres were donated this past week.

These latest gifts bring easement protection in Rappahannock County to 16,169 acres or nearly 12 percent of all privately owned land.

What more could we want for Christmas? This is the season of giving, and we got six of the best presents we could hope for in our quest to protect land in this beautiful county.

Thanks to these easements, Turkey Mountain is now protected and Sperryville has a protective "hard edge" at least on one side. The summit of Red Oak Mountain will forever remain as it is ^>day.

If there is any downside, it is that, once again, circumstance has prompted property held in one family for multiple generations to change hands before the conservation action took place.

In the spirit of Christmas, we hope the "old families" will stay here and figure out how to donate land conservation and school funding benefits as Cliff Miller has done.