So, the Crane Estate is the place I based my #SolarPunkSunday microfiction piece on. While it doesn't have the #SolarArray of Star Island or a #WindTurbine (yet), it is making good use of a cistern that was installed there by the original owner -- which catches rainwater off the roof for future use! Also, there was a wind turbine on nearby Eagle Hill, but it was damaged in 2018 by an electrical fire, and is being torn down rather then repaired. However, both Eagle Hill and Castle Hill would be good places to catch sea breezes from the Atlantic Ocean!

The Trustees of Reservation Have A Mission…

November 22, 2011

"When Chicago industrialist Richard T. Crane, Jr. built his palatial summer home in 1928, he planned carefully for the estate’s water needs, using state-of-the-art technology-after all, the Cranes made their fortunes manufacturing plumbing supplies. As part of a plan that included wells throughout the estate, he arranged to harvest rainwater from the roof of the Great House and store it in an underground cistern next door.

"Over the years, that cistern was forgotten, says Robert Murray, superintendent of the Crane Estate, as water lines easily brought potable water up Castle Hill. The echoing chamber stood empty, just below the surface, for perhaps 60 years, until plans got underway for a major replanting on the Allee-the storied tree-lined lawn that rolls from the Great House down to the sea.

" 'As we were planning for the Allee restoration, we knew that we had to make provisions for irrigation in the event of a mandatory town-wide water ban,' Murray says. A drought would be the undoing of the substantial investment in new trees along the half-mile landscape. The organization estimates they could collect 180,000 gallons of rainwater a year from the roof-enough to take care of those young trees until they can stand on their own.

"The cistern revival is symbolic of a rethinking of the mission and goals of the Trustees of Reservations, a 120-year-old organization dedicated to preserving and protecting more than 100 special places in Massachusetts-some 20 of which are found on the North Shore. It was one of the first land trust organizations in the country, so shifting its time-honed methods wasn’t a natural move. But in response to changing times that demand more agile environmental action, the Trustees launched its 2017 Strategic Plan to make the organization more relevant in an age of eco-upheaval. The emphasis on the environment is not just a feel-good plan-the Trustees have 75 miles of coastline property that they are the first to admit could very well be radically altered by global warming."

[...]

"These properties feature, in a relatively small geographic area, a range of natural, cultural, and historic resources that are representative of the Trustees’ broader network of properties: historic structures like the Great House on Castle Hill, the Paine House on Greenwood Farms, and the Old House at Appleton Farms; important historical collections; significant natural and planned landscapes; coastal habitats, grasslands, marshlands, and agricultural lands."

Read more:
https://www.nshoremag.com/faces-places/the-trustees-of-reservation-have-a-mission/

#SolarPunkSunday #LandPreservation #Massachusetts #LandTrusts #HistoricBuildings #WalkingTrails #NewEngland