Reliving History on the James River

Leif Riddervold, Bundoran Farm’s natural resources manager, is a man of the land and water.  When he is not tending to the 2,000 plus acres of pasture, orchards and forest within Bundoran Farm’ preserved and protected farmbelt & greenbelt, he is often involved in other pursuits that foster a greater appreciation of our natural resources [...]

Baldwin Center for Preservation Development Host Landowner Workshop on Forest Management and Conservation

This past Wednesday evening , June 9, 2010, we were pleased to host a workshop at the Baldwin Center for Preservation Development for landowners interested in learning about forest management and conservation of their own forest groves.  This is critically important, as 66% of Virginia’s 15.72 million acres of timberland is in private hands.
The speakers [...]

Feed Your Inner Policy Wonk!

For those of you with more than a passing interest in rural preservation, we offer our final report on the Baldwin Center’s inaugural symposium: Residential Development and the Working Landscape.  With support from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, participants in the two-day gathering looked at the problem of farmland loss, evaluated the existing preservation [...]

The World of Preservation-Development

Readers interested in the “big picture” of rural land use in the US may enjoy this recent Washington Post article.  The author features Bundoran Farm, as well as Serenbe, Prairie Crossing and other communities which, in various ways, pair development and serious conservation of productive land.  The communities featured here are incredibly diverse, ranging from [...]

Green Mansions Part Deux

And from the same source, this article detailing the struggle of U2 guitarist “The Edge,” who’s attempting to build a “luxury green” community of a handful of 7,000-12,000 square foot homes in the Santa Monica Mountains, above Malibu, California.  Environmental groups, regulatory agencies, and rock stars are definitely not seeing eye-to-eye on the project.  The [...]

Home-making on the Farm

In belated honor of  J.D. Salinger,  a deceptively simple observation on homes, by Joyce Maynard:
“A good home must be made, not bought.”
Taken a bit out of context, this assertion is, when you think about it, pretty radical.  We buy homes, like we buy cars and home theater systems, though usually with a bigger loan, and [...]

Buy the S&P 500 (acres)!

For those relatively few of you who don’t subscribe to Pork Magazine, (the leading periodical of porcine agribusiness), I pass along an interesting article.  It covers a study from Iowa State that compared Iowa farm acreage, as an investment, to the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index.
The study’s authors conclude that the wisdom of putting [...]

Baldwin Center is Open for Business

The Baldwin Center for Preservation Development is open for business 8:30 am to 5:00 pm, Monday through Friday, and by appointment on the weekends.  You are invited to stop by to see and learn about all the interesting things happening at Bundoran Farm. 
Our new contact information is:
Bundoran Farm
5005 Edge Valley Road
North Garden, VA  22959
434-295-3700
info@bundoranfarm.com
Since its [...]

Build it (Farm it) and They Will Come

Below is the unabbreviated copy of the article written by Edward H. Carter that appeared in Piedmont Virginian magazine.
Where do we go with this?  Posited the fleece clad Bob Baldwin as he stood next to a blank whiteboard facing the fifty or so participants in the inaugural conference of the Baldwin Center for Preservation Development.  [...]

Residential Development and the Working Landscape

We received a nice mention of our inaugural symposium in the new issue of The Piedmont Virginian, a beautiful publication focusing on landscape and culture of Virginia. Apologies for the scan: there’s no online version:  
BCPD-Symposium-PVMag-Jan-2010