Sussex County Land Trust preserves an 88-acre family farm in Lewes.
Ard Na Gréine in Lewes will remain a quiet, working landscape for generations to come.
Protecting the property started in 2019, through a partnership between the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, DNREC, Sussex County, the Longwood Foundation and private funding.
Total funding to preserve the property was over $9 million.
“It will always be open space and nothing will be built on it, and with the USDA money that is, the 57 acres, pretty much the heart of the interior of the land that will have to be in continuous farmland whether that’s conventional farming, it really can look any kind of way. It has to remain in agland, and then the perimeter has a DNREC easement on it,” said Sara Bluhm is the Sussex County Land Trust Executive Director.
Part of the easement requirement is to develop a masterplan that includes a recreational walking trail that connects to the Georgetown-Lewes Trail.
The planning process to guide the property’s future will come in the months and years ahead, focusing on balancing conservation, agriculture and potential passive recreational use.
The farm represents one of the last remaining pieces of open space east of Route 1 in the Lewes area and is surrounded by various developments.
"It is such an oddity to have that much open space among such a development corridor, and trust me there was a lot of development pressure,” said Bluhm. “But Linda, the landowner, she was adamant to keep it looking the way that it has left her entire life."
For now, the property remains an active farm and is not yet open to the public.
