For decades, Doug Clayton has served as a caretaker for 822 Mountain Road, a historic summer home with a stunning view of the Mount Monadnock vista. But when the owners, elderly and no longer summering in Jaffrey, offered him the property last year, he said it was a stunning gift – as well as a albatross about his neck.
Clayton, of Jaffrey, was a neighbor when he was offered the job as caretaker of the summer property, owned by Dr. Graham Jeffries and his wife Elizabeth Jeffries since 1982, who visited Jaffrey every summer.
The historic farmhouse, built in the early 1800s, has a spectacular view of Mount Monadnock, is within a mile of the wooded trails that Henry David Thoreau walked and wrote about in his journals, and has a long history, but has all the issues associated with homes that old, Clayton said – especially since it has been used solely as a summer house for decades, and isn’t fitted out with a proper heating source to use year-round.
It was an incredible gift when the Jeffries offered him the property, Clayton said.
He’s just not sure what to do with it.
“They just gave me the property, as a gift. That was an amazing thing. Unexpected. But now I have to figure out what to do with it, and that is a problem,” Clayton said. “I want to do something that will preserve it as they enjoyed it.”
Clayton doesn’t live in the home, and has considered its potential uses – as a bed and breakfast, summer home, “glamping” site, or overnight rental property. But whatever it is, he said, he feels he has the duty to steward the property towards something that honors its history, while allowing the property to be used.
The first piece of advice he received was to restore the back view of the mountain, which over the years had become clogged with the growth of trees. He cleared about 10 acres of the property, restoring not only the view of the mountain, but of a man-made pond on the property.
When he began to think about how to restore that section of forest, multiple friends pointed him in the direction of the Cheshire County Conservation District, which was offering small grants for projects that support environmental stewardship and ecological integrity.
“I had never written a grant before,” Clayton admitted. But he decided to give it a try, putting together a plan to plant a variety of seedlings around his pond and the cleared 10 acres which would support pollinators and other wildlife.
The grant is small – about $1,500 – but will offset his costs.
While many people have a dim view of logging operations, Clayton said, when done properly, they can create edge habitat for a more diverse type of wildlife. And with the flower and tree plantings he’s putting in, pollinators such as bees and butterflies have additional habitat, too.
“Already, I see turkeys, and great blue heron eating frogs in the pond, and some wood ducks. Out here, there’s an abundance of wildlife. It’s out in the middle of the woods. But you can still increase species diversity,” Clayton said.
Clayton’s also planting hazel nuts, hybrid chestnut and hickory nut trees, which will provide food sources for local wildlife, and managing some of the invasive species in the area, such as bittersweet, buckthorn and Japanese barberry.
Clayton said his dream is to bring the property back to its once beautiful landscape. He’s looking into either conserving the land, or adding deed restrictions that would prevent a developer from removing the historic house and using the land for some other purpose.
“Every time you look at it, it’s different. It’s beautiful. It’s inspiring. I have confidence that something good is going to come along,” Clayton said.
Ashley Saari can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.