04/22/2026
This , we remember our founder, Chauncey Devereux Stillman, who acquired two abandoned dairy farms comprising 620 acres of barren Dutchess County land and transformed it into Wethersfield Estate & Garden. Since 1937, the property has embodied his passion for beauty, for farm conservation, and for the preservation of a natural habitat for wildlife and recreation. Today, its forests, which comprise a third of the estate, are home to bears, bobcats, coyotes, skunks, and as many as 70 species of birds. Some 55 acres of ponds collect the runoff water that irrigates the croplands, pastures, and gardens. Hiking and riding trails abound. The practice of contour farming, pioneered at Wethersfield, creates the elegant agricultural stripes that line the estate’s rolling hills. As early as 1952, on a visit to Wethersfield Farm, a UN Science & Conservation delegation recognized it as a “model example of an excellent conservation farm with a tremendous variety of well-planned and properly applied conservation practices.” With adherence to land protection in perpetuity, to reforestation, to fierce opposition to pesticides, herbicides, and defoliants, and to maintaining a protected wildlife refuge, Wethersfield’s core legacy values remain sacrosanct.
Chauncey Stillman placed Wethersfield in land conservation, first through the American Farmland Trust. The easement was later transferred to the Dutchess Land Conservancy (DLC), enabling 7,000 acres of continuous open space with adjoining properties also under DLC protection.
