So Here's the Basic Story: 2

I’m married to John, the oldest of the four children of Johnnie and Georgia Theys. We live in Woodbridge, Connecticut, a neighboring state of New York about 600 miles from the farm. Johnnie and Georgia bought the farmland from Dwight and Lethia Franks in November of 1950 when my husband was seven years old. They were looking for a place to fill my Brooklyn-born father-in-law’s dream of owning a farm. My mother-in-law grew up in Asheville and had family in the Raleigh area, so it was a natural place for them to look for farm land. In their mid 80s, they still live there today, and the road leading to the farm is now paved and named Theys Road.

As people who love nature, Johnnie and Georgia came up with a wonderful idea. In 2000, they placed the Land in the Triangle Land Conservancy, to ensure that it will never be developed. These beautiful 92-acres bordering on Lake Wheeler are now guaranteed to remain unspoiled, although ownership of the farm remains with the family, and will pass from Johnnie and Georgia to the next generation some day--a day we all hope is far in the future.

The second part of this tale is about a piece of land--about 60 acres--that Johnnie and Georgia gave to their children as a gift many years ago. This land is adjacent to the farm, and the idea was that someday we would sell it or develop it, but "someday" was always so far in the future, that no one ever felt much need to think about it very much. This picture shows the farm and the land, which we all call "The Perdue Property" after the family who sold it years ago. Incidentally, the accent in Perdue is on the first syllable, in good old southern style.

In March of this year, we took our daughter for an overnight trip to visit colleges. In the car, somewhere near Vermont, my husband returned to a favorite conversation of ours--how much we'd like to build an energy-efficient house. We've been talking about this on and off since the late 70s, but that day it suddenly struck me. "Why couldn't we build green houses in North Carolina?" I said. We all had the same thought, which can be summed up as "Oooooooooh"! We called my son at college. His reaction can also be summed up as "Oooooooooh"! But then it was time to get out of the car and look at a college.

Later that night, John had the inspiration that made this idea so special. "We could give the community access to the farm, " he said. Within moments, the synergy was obvious. It was a delightful answer to a problem that had been perplexing all of us for years: what would happen to the farm when it came into the hands of the next generation? How could we afford to keep it? What would we do on it? Who would live there? No one had been able to answer those questions, and so we had--with a lot of sadness--concluded that the farm would have to be sold. And even though it could not be developed or divided, it seemed destined to become the playground of one wealthy family. Suddenly, we could see a glimmer of hope, not only for keeping the farm, but for keeping it alive, the way Georgia and Johnnie had always envisioned.