Farm Owner Embraces Preservation

Easement Will Protect Against Development, Brings Tax Benefits

By Arianne Aryanpur (Contact)

Sunday, May 11, 2008

A land preservation group last week announced an agreement with the owners of a 371-acre farm on the Potomac River near Lucketts that will protect the historic property from development.

The farm, which includes agricultural land, forests, streams, rare wildlife habitat and one mile of undeveloped river shoreline, belongs to Steve Cox and Avis Renshaw, owners of Mom’s Apple Pie Co., a bakery chain with stores in Loudoun, Fauquier and Prince William counties.

The Northern Virginia Conservation Trust, based in Annandale, said Cox and Renshaw have agreed to place the property in a conservation easement held by the trust. The farm is known as the place where the Confederate army forded the Potomac on its way to the Battle of Antietam during the Civil War.

“The Cox Farm easement is a real milestone because it is a property that combines ecological resources with historic resources with sustainability,” said trust President Mike Nardolilli. “It has great ecological benefits being on the river, it has a great historical significance because of the march by Lee to Antietam, and it’s also important because it preserves a local farm.

“Especially with rising fuel costs, we need to start thinking about growing our food locally.”

Mom’s Apple Pie uses some of the property to grow produce such as berries, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, peppers and herbs, Cox said. All of the produce is used in items sold at the stores, such as pies and quiches.

Another portion of the farm is rented to someone who grows corn and soybeans.

Cox said he and his wife, Renshaw, purchased the land in 1997. He said that they have been in discussions with the conservation trust since 2006 and that he began thinking about placing the property in a conservation easement long before that.

“It’s something I wanted to do for many years,” said Cox, 60. “I thought a special horticulture operation, including . . . almost impossible-to-procure products like good blackberries and strawberries, could become a poster child for conservation.

“There are some places on the farm that are so delicate you shouldn’t even have a path through them,” he added.

The easement, which was finalized last month, is a voluntary agreement between the farm’s owners and the trust that permanently limits development on the property. In return for giving up development rights on the land, Cox and Renshaw receive significant tax benefits.

Cox said those tax credits factored heavily into their decision to agree to the easement.

“It could help us get out of some debt,” he said.

With the addition of Cox Farm, the amount of land the trust has preserved in Loudoun since the group’s founding in 1994 has reached 1,130 acres, trust officials said.

The trust also said it facilitated the state’s purchase last month of the 1,770-acre Crow’s Nest Peninsula in Stafford County, which the state will manage as a nature preserve.

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