When you visit a beautiful beach or stunning, designed landscape like Crane Beach and Castle Hill on the Crane Estate in Ipswich, a National Historic Landmark, you may not realize the story behind how the property came to be preserved in the past for you to enjoy today and in the future. Many years ago the Crane Family generously left their iconic 2,100-acre property to The Trustees to care for and preserve in perpetuity, but an ecologically important 20.5 acre abutting parcel, known as the Steep Hill tract, was left unprotected and developable.
The Trustees today announced an opportunity for the community and interested supporters to be part of a new story designed to put this land in The Trustees’ hands and prevent its development while also protecting important habitat and preserving the beauty and wonder that visitors experience at the Crane Estate. The Trustees recently reached agreement to purchase the Steep Hill property and is actively seeking support from the town of Ipswich, residents, Trustees members and supporters to raise a total of $2.5 million needed by September 28, 2016 in order to acquire the property and permanently protect it. An anonymous matching challenge of up to $500,000 has been issued to kick start this campaign which has already raised more than $1.2 million to date.
“Many visitors to the Crane Estate may not realize that the Crane Family still held land at Castle Hill even though they had donated the majority to The Trustees,” says Barbara Erickson, Trustees President and CEO. “We are grateful for the opportunity to protect this critical piece of land and create an important visual and ecologically significant buffer next to one of our most iconic and loved properties.”
The Trustees is the world’s first land preservation nonprofit and Massachusetts’ largest conservation organization whose mission to save, preserve, and care for scenic, natural, and culturally significant sites around the state. The Steep Hill property is particularly significant in that it fits all three of these categories. For decades The Trustees has been interested in acquiring this unprotected parcel of land on Castle Hill which abuts the recently restored Grand Allée and includes wooded paths, fields, scrubland, and nearly 1,000 feet of frontage on Steep Hill Beach adjacent to Crane Beach. It also hosts a maritime scrubland natural community that has been designated by the state as a high priority and it is part of an area delineated by the state Natural Heritage and Endangered Species program as BioMap2 Core habitat. The beach’s relative isolation offers a refuge for both feeding shorebirds, including endangered piping plovers, and visitors seeking a more private experience with nature. Looking ahead, keeping Steep Hill natural and undeveloped will also be important in protecting the Crane Estate future sea-level rise. Its large boulders can also help mitigate severe erosion that is expected to increase along coastline properties.
Left unprotected, the Steep Hill parcel could be developed with one or more private homes embedded in Castle Hill, looming over the Grand Allée, Steep Hill Beach, and Crane Beach and compromising the important ecological habitat and coastline and potentially marring the magnificent view at this iconic National Historic Landmark. Furthermore, the lot comes with an access easement over Trustees land which, if the lot was developed, would allow private traffic to travel through the otherwise restricted and bucolic roads of Castle Hill.
To hear more about this critical project, join The Trustees for an upcoming information session followed by an optional site walk Saturday, July 30 at 9AM. Meet at the Castle Hill Casino Complex Bachelor’s Quarters located on the Grand Allée. To RSVP, please email development@thetrustees.org. To learn more about the campaign or how to contribute, please visit http://www.thetrustees.org/places-to-visit/north-shore/complete-the-beach.html