Texas Saved from Scenic Highway
On Monday February 21, 2022, Love Farm Wilds LLC closed on 4 parcels of land purchased from James P. Kelly, the son of James B. and Eileen M. Kelly and the eldest brother of Dan Kelly, Love Farm's Lead Land Artist.
3 years ago the National Park Service made an offer to purchase portions of brother Jim's 4 parcels. The NPS has been buying land between US 31 and M22 within a proposed corridor to expand the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Love Farm wanted to purchase just the southern most parcel and asked Jim to take that off the table, but the NPS told Jim it was unable to modify their offer. If Love Farm wanted the southern parcel, we'd have to buy all 4, over 200 acres! This would be a huge expansion of the East Farm, previously just 12 acres and 2 pole buildings.
Existing west farm (left). Newly acquired and existing east farm parcels (right). Modified LIAA.org map.
The east farm looks kind of like Texas!
We didn't know where the funds to buy all 4 would come from, we just trusted that the cosmos would provide and entered into an option agreement with Jim. The cosmos eventually manifested Bill Stenzel to amp up our swing trading chops.
After the agreement to purchase was in place, we discovered that the NPS's legacy plan to put a scenic highway through the corridor was still active! Local folks who were around in the 1980s remember the intense opposition to the highway and how the NPS seemed to back down. We all assumed that plan was dead, but nope. The NPS just changed gears, and started quietly buying land within the corridor as it became available. They're just doing their job - our understanding is that the master plan for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is a federal mandate, and currently that master plan includes a scenic highway in Benzie County.
In our opinion, a paved road would be a ridiculous degradation of pristine forest and wetlands. So Love Farm's decision to buy everything turned out to be super lucky, virtuosic, probably even inspired. Standing with wild forest is both a boon and a blessing.
Our acquisition would prove to be a financial adventure and, from a strictly pragmatic perspective, even a bit reckless. Love Farm never considered exploiting the forest to turn a quick profit, eg harvesting veneer logs or parceling out building lots, even if doing so would shore up our liquidity. Buying all 4 parcels and leaving them wild just felt wonderful.
We were delighted to discover last January that our neighbor to the west, the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy, declined to sell a chunk of the Embayment Lakes property to the NPS after finding out about the dang road.
We love the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and could support the NPS corridor as wilds not roads. Instead of a scenic highway, maybe the corridor could include hiking trails or bike paths and maybe even wilderness camp sites, as implemented on North Manitou. Can the NPS remove the plan for a road from their mandate permanently? How can this be accomplished, would it require an act of Congress? Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, guided by the expertise of Sarah Alexander, we've begun low impact sugar bush operations in the forest. We'll be harvesting and selling Maple sap, and eventually producing syrup. Here's some of the crazy health benefits of drinking and cooking with Maple sap.
