Blog #6—Conservation Easement? What's That?

All photos, maps, charts, and text © Hilton Pond North

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All photos, maps, charts, and text © Hilton Pond North

CONSERVATION EASEMENT?

WHAT'S THAT?

#6: 06-12 March 2025

We had been pondering the possibility of eventually moving from South Carolina's Piedmont to the Blue Ridge for at least a decade, whiling away free time looking at mountain land and homes on Realtor.com. We even visited a few promising properties but never closed a deal. In November 2023 we came across a listing near Lansing in upper Ashe County NC that looked interesting: 3-bedroom, 2½-bath, earth-sheltered home (above) built in the late 1990s and in good shape, an old barn and woodshed, a separate cabin (below), and a paved driveway, all on 35+ heavily wooded acres with springs, streams, and a well—plus that obligatory small pond. Less than 15 minutes to stores in West Jefferson and doctors and a full hospital in Jefferson. Most important, the listing was within our price range.

We were quite intrigued until we read the fine print: The property was under a conservation easement with New River Conservancy that stipulated "no cutting, no subdividing, no re-building old structures, no off-road vehicles, and no further development." Being life-long proponents of heating with wood, we were concerned about the "no cutting" restriction, in particular, and whether an easement would affect our research, so we put aside that listing and continued our Internet search.

The week after Thanksgiving 2023 we headed north to meet Scott for a tour. Like him, we liked the home as soon as we entered. It had been well-cared for, with propane-heated tile floors and back-up warmth from mini-split HVAC wall units AND a centrally located Consolidated Dutchwest wood stove. The great room had huge south-facing picture windows (passive solar heat!) with to-die-for views of surrounding woods and distant mountain ridges (above). One of three bedrooms would be perfect for an indoor office, and the home had high-speed fiber optic Internet service. The tap water tasted good . . . and the toilets all flushed!

A day later we got an e-mail from long-time Ashe County friend and realtor Scott Cronk (Mountainscape Realty) excitedly asking if we'd seen this very listing on-line. We said we had but explained our misgivings; Scott's response "I don't think a conservation easement is a problem. The house looks good and based on aerials (above) the land and vegetation are what you want. It looks promising and we need to go see it in person before somebody else gets it!" So we went.