The Upper Saco Valley Land Trust is working with Nat & Marianne Lucy to protect 38.5 acres of farmland and forestland in North Conway on land formerly owned by Bun Lucy and his family.

The “Bun Lucy Farm” is located along West Side Road and slopes gently downhill to the east to the Saco River. This property is surrounded by land that is already protected by conservation easements held by USVLT and other conservation groups, including USVLT’s Lucy Brook Farm Agricultural Easement to the south, USVLT’s Lucy Family Farm Easements to the west and north, and the Lucy Easement held by the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, also to the north.

USVLT is seeking funding for an Agricultural Easement on the property, which is currently used by the Lucy family for maple sugaring and haying. This easement will protect:

• 20 acres of agricultural fields used for pasture and cultivation
• 16 acres of hemlock-hardwood-pine forest, predominantly composed of mature sugar maple used for maple sugaring
• 2 acres of floodplain forest along the Saco River dominated by silver maple
• Scenic views of forestland and farmland along West Side Road, a State Scenic Byway
• 21 acres of land in the Saco River intervale floodplain, including seasonally flooded forest-shrub wetland
• 16 acres of prime farmland soils
• 21 acres of farmland soils of local importance
• 37 acres of soils in the highest suitability category (Group 1) for forest products
• Over 1,000 feet of shoreline and riparian habitat along the Saco River
• Over 2,000 feet of shoreline and riparian habitat along Lucy Brook
• 38.44 acres of High Priority Water Supply Lands within the Wellhead Protection Area for the North Conway Water Precinct
• 38.44 acres of high transmissivity land overlying the Saco Acquifer
• 25 acres of the highest ranked habitat in New Hampshire according to the 2020 NH Wildlife Action Plan
• Additional lands in USVLT’s Intervale Focus Area (USVLT 2011 Strategic Conservation Plan)
• Potential for a Hudsonia-Silverling River Channel natural community. This river channel community is unique to the Saco River area of Maine and New Hampshire. It is a critically imperiled and globally rare natural community (NH state rank S1, global rank G1). This natural community includes:
  • Hairy Hudsonia, a rare perennial shrub found only along sandy riverbanks. This plant has a NH state ranking of S1 (a species at very high risk of extinction due to extreme rarity).
  • Silverling, a rare plant that grows on gravel barrens of the Saco River. This plant has a NH state ranking of S1 (a species at very high risk of extinction due to extreme rarity).
• Potential for a sugar maple -- ironwood -- shorthusk floodplain forest natural community, a critically imperiled natural community (NH rank S1)