Property owner wants to keep land open to public
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By Gordon Dritschilo Herald Staff - Published: July 6, 2007
HUBBARDTON From the moment he bought it, Kit Davidson said he knew he wanted his 420-acre property to be open to the public.
Now he's trying to make sure it stays that way.
"Our problem is trying to find someone to give it to," he said Thursday. "You'd be surprised how hard it is to give away gorgeous land."
Davidson cut the more than four miles of hiking trails one leading to the top of Mount Zion into the property himself and installed a Japanese garden with several pools and waterfalls. He has always allowed public access to the land, free of charge.
"It means so much to the people who come here and they tell me so everyday," he said. "They're really entranced by it. There are spectacular views from the top in every direction."
After speaking with several organizations, from the state to the Nature Conservancy, Davidson said none has given him the sort of guarantees he wants that the property will stay as it is.
Davidson is 83 years old, though he says he has "every intention of being around for another 15 or 20," and has willed the land to the state. However, he said changes in administration and policy mean the state might preserve the land, but wouldn't assign anyone to maintain the trails and garden.
Without an active caretaker, he said, the area will essentially disappear.
"The caretaker doesn't even have to be full time," Davidson said. "I did this for years while running a film business."
Kate Willard, lands administration chief for the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation, said the department recognizes the value of the property, but simply could not make a guarantee that it would be a manned park.
"Obviously, there are budgetary issues that come into play," she said. "When we do management plans for properties, it's a long, involved process. They involve public input and they're processes we go through with all our public lands."
Davidson said he also spoke to private organizations, such as the Nature Conservancy.
"Their interest was not in the trails, but mainly in the fragrant fern, an endangered species near the trail," he said. "They might allow public access, but I can't imagine they'd encourage it. They're kind of elitist."
Rose Paul, the Nature Conservancy's director of science and stewardship in Vermont, pointed out that the nonprofit organization's mission is one of protecting biodiversity.
"Our mission is not to provide public recreation," she said. "That is an additional benefit at some of our properties."
Paul said the group maintains trails at 13 of its 44 properties. She also said when the group cannot meet the needs of a conservation-minded landowner, it tries to help them find another organization that will.
Davidson said he has spoken with other private groups from the Vermont Land Trust to Middlebury College, but none, he said, were in the business of maintaining a hiking area.
"It couldn't be a private individual because what happens when he dies?" he said, adding that his only child was not interested in maintaining the property. "Even if she were, she'd face the same problem what would happen to it when she dies?"
Starting a private foundation to care for the land is not practical, either, Davidson said.
"That's the sort of thing you have to have money," he said. "We're not that rich."
Davidson said his current hope is to get one of Vermont's senators to look at the property and consider it for a national park.
"We just don't want to see this gorgeous land chopped up and denied to the public," he said.
Davidson said he bought the land in 1966 for $69 an acre in an effort to have a place to flee to from New York City during the summer. He said he was not looking for more than 5 acres.
"I spent five and a half years looking for it, climbing on the bus and looking at properties I saw listed," he said.
A local real estate agent showed him the Hubbardton property as "an afterthought."
"It was the first week in October," he said. "Everything looks good in the first week in October, so I had to be really discriminating about it. I spent a lot of time walking and walking and walking."
The Japanese garden was inspired by gardens he visited in Japan while filming a documentary.
"I went to the front gate of one and found out, one, it was closed because it was Sunday and, two, I had to be part of an organized tour to even get in," he said. "So I went around the back and hopped the fence. I spent two wonderful hours in there, ducking from tree to tree to avoid the guards."
Davidson said he views the garden as an eternal work in progress.
"The Japanese garden is a little bit like a Gothic cathedral," he said. "It's not meant to be finished, it's meant to be worked on."
Davison said hundreds of people come to the area each year, and he would certainly welcome more.
The property is off St. John Road, a left off Monument Hill road about 6 miles from Route 4, just before the Hubbardton Battlefield.
Contact Gordon Dritschilo at gordon.dritschilo@rutlandherald.com.
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