New York State Governor Kathy Hochul has made a commitment toward the permanent protection of the ecologically rich forests and waters of the 36,000-acre Whitney Estate.
One of the largest and most important intact forest landscapes in the heart of the Adirondack Park, the Whitney Estate has been recognized as a conservation priority since the 1980s.
Nearly three times the size of Manhattan, Whitney Park contains 22 interconnected lakes and ponds, over 100 miles of undeveloped shorelines, and a handful of buildings related to timber operations.
The tract is the missing link for re-establishing historic canoe routes that once traversed the property.
The greatest permanent protection for Adirondack forests most commonly happens through state purchase and making them part of the constitutionally protected Forest Preserve. Lands acquired for the preserve must be kept wild forever.
The state also has a conservation easement program that allows the state to buy up and extinguish development rights, while allowing private landowners to continue owning and managing the lands for timber, under state supervision.
The Hendrickson estate has promised the proceeds from the sale of the parcel to the Town of Long Lake, a community of about 800 in the center of Hamilton County, New York’s most rural county, with a population of about 4,000 people.
Whitney Park is currently owned by a Trust set up by the Estate of John Hendrickson, the husband of Marylou Whitney (1925-2019), died unexpectedly in 2024.
The purchase of 32,000 acres, much of that rugged and steeply sloped forest lands and wetlands with high conservation values, would be one of the most significant investments and additions to the Forest Preserve by the state of New York in decades.
Adirondack Park advocates are supporting Hochul’s announcement. Protect the Adirondacks has been calling on Hochul and Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Amanda Lefton to add the Whitney Park property to the Forest Preserve.
“Seeing the majority of the Whitney lands added to the Forest Preserve would fulfill a vision the Adirondack Council has championed for more than four decades,” said Raul J. Aguirre, that group’s Executive Director.
The Trust is currently negotiating to sell these lands to Todd Industries, a resort developer from Dallas, Texas.
Shawn Todd, founder of Todd Interests, said however that their initial agreement to purchase the estate came with a provision that they could not sell the property the State. He told Adirondack Explorer magazine however, that he “has not been able to see such a specific provision from John Hendrickson in any documentation shared with him by the trustees.”
John Hendrickson, late husband of generationally wealthy Marylou Whitney, made public his distaste for the State since at least the late 1990s. Whitney’s second husband, Cornelius “Sonny” Vanderbilt Whitney (she was his fourth wife) died in 1992. She married Hendrickson in 1997.
The Whitneys made the wealth used to purchase the Estate in the coal, iron and steel industries. He served as Secretary of the Navy during the U.S. Navy‘s shift from wooden ships.
Whitney Park map courtesy Protect the Adirondacks.
Source link
