By Suzanne Hodgson
Staff Writer

Twenty-four acres of sprawling woods, farmland and historic buildings are now safe from development.
Cape Elizabeth Land Trust and Peter Eastman’s Turkey Hill Farm announced a permanent preservation easement agreement Sunday during the trust’s annual meeting.
The agreement will be attached to the property’s deed so it won’t be split into separate lots for housing development.
“Eastmans’ farm is a legacy of land use and property use,” said CELT Executive Director Chris Franklin. “It will continue as a community resource rather than them [the family] selling it to the developers.”
Franklin added that the Eastmans have been approached at least once a year for the past 40 years by developers hoping to buy their land.
Eastman and CELT have been talking for the past six years about the possibility of donating the farm, but Franklin said the reason the farm was being donated now was simply, “The timing made sense.”
“They want to be an area that enriches the community,” said Franklin, “real estate values can put a price on farmland, but there’s no way to value lands that have community value like Turkey Hill Farm.”
The terms of the easement are designed so the land can continue to be farmed by members of the community and used for educational programs and community access.
Family members no longer cultivate the land, but Turkey Hill Farm is used for a youth development program, Cultivating Community, seasonal Twilight Suppers, the 20-mile Meal, and most recently was the setting for a haunted Halloween night for Cape Elizabeth.
The land is still used as a working farm for a few members of the community that grow peppers, onions and other vegetables for their family and friends. During the summer, Pond Cove  school children spend their days growing flowers and vegetables in their own garden near the old farmhouse, built around 1890.  John Eastman, son of Peter Eastman, said the house was moved to its current location in 1921 and has not been renovated since the 30s.
Around the farm there are chickens and dogs, the end of seasonal vegetables, wooden benches and swings.
While Turkey Farm has been donated to CELT, the farm can be sold to another buyer, but the easement attached with the deed will prevent the land from being split up in the future, and allows CELT to clean up trails in the woods and keep the farmland fertile.
CELT was founded in 1985 and after many public forums, the land trust agreed to focus its preservation on three main areas: habitat conservancy, recreation properties and agriculture lands.
CELT has 25 plots of land around Cape Elizabeth, some as donations, and some it has bought.  When Cape’s land trust was first founded there were only 12 land trusts in the state, now there are 105.  
Franklin said the farm is a “tri-fecta of all three focus areas.”
In Cape Elizabeth finding vacant parcels of land greater than 5 acres is rare, according to Franklin, so CELT began looking to the landowners who want to donate parts of their land for conservation.
“Land trusts are the only organization in the state solely dedicated to singularly focusing on protecting land,” said Franklin.