Winnakee Nature Preserve

The Winnakee Nature Preserve was once part of the Crumwold estate, one of three large Hudson River estates that supported the people of Hyde Park. Built by Colonel Archibald Rogers in the 1800s, the estate included more than 700 acres of farmland and forests. By the 1890s, Rogers managed his woodlands according to scientific forestry principles, harvesting timber while building sustainable woods roads, planting young trees, and selectively thinning them as they grew. In the early 1900s, the Cornell Cooperative Extension regarded his tree plantations as one of New York State's best examples of reforestation by private owners. Young Franklin D. Roosevelt spent countless hours with Rogers and his children and was deeply influenced by his neighbor's forestry practices. After Rogers' death in 1929, the Crumwold estate was sold and gradually subdivided into the present-day communities along Routes 9 and 9G. A 105-acre tract escaped development because one property owner wished to preserve the land, and in 1994 Leonard Lazarus donated it to the Winnakee Land Trust, a not-for-profit conservation organization that maintains it as a nature preserve. Winnakee has worked to restore the nineteenth-century carriage roads once traveled by Rogers, his family and friends, including Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its pools, streams, and wet woods support many kinds of wildlife and plants, and its wetlands help prevent floods, erosion, and storm damage, maintain stream flows during dry periods, protect and recharge groundwater supplies, and filter and treat surface water. Formed in 1989, the Winnakee Land Trust preserves important open space resources in northern Dutchess County, including farms, viewsheds, and natural areas, through conservation easements, public access trail agreements, and land donations.

Hyde Park, New York · United States