The Land

The Poole Farm project offers a model for addressing the challenges that local food farms near growing population centers are facing. With more than 50 acres of productive fields situated just 18 miles north of downtown Durham, mid-sized farms like Poole Farm can play a key role in meeting the food needs of the 1.75 million people who live in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area. Sitting on a quiet public road named Poole Farm Road, this place that has been part of the community and in the family for generations. Durham County designated the Poole Farm as a conservation priority due to its prime agricultural soils, rural character, and its streams feeding into the Little River Reservoir, a major drinking water source for both Raleigh and Durham

The Role of Unique Places

When the latest generation of family inherited the farm, they were faced with inheritance taxes. Since there was not a family member that wanted to make Poole Farm their home, they decided that it made sense to place the property on the market.

Within a month on being on the market, when Unique Places first looked at Poole Farm, it was already attracting developers’ attention. We quickly assessed the property’s importance to the region – its prime agricultural soils and sizable fields capable of contributing to the local food system and its ability to provide a natural buffer for the drinking water supply. We used our knowledge of conservation finance options to generate a return on investment that included significant financial and conservation benefits. That same year, Unique Places purchased Poole Farm as a conservation investor.

With the property off the market, Unique Places was then able to develop a more detailed assessment of conservation values at Poole Farm. The plan revealed how best to structure a series of conservation easements transactions based on available funding options.


Unique Places’ conservation strategy included:

• Selling a 50-acre agricultural easement to Durham County, preserving the farm fields and productive soils. This included a donation of 25% of the easement’s appraised value and 6 acres of dedicated open space donated to the County.
• Selling a 32-acre easement protecting wetlands and bottomland stream frontage along Buffalo Creek to the North Carolina Ecosystem Enhancement Program.
• Establishing a relationship with a neighboring landowner who had family ties to Poole Farm and was interested in farming the land. By helping him sell an agricultural easement on his farm, thereby adding to the amount of protected land.
• Developing 6 homesites lots on a portion of the property that was the least environmentally-sensitive. The neighboring farmer acquired these lots so they would not be developed.

As a result, a total of 89 acres of open space in the Little River watershed are now permanently protected. Durham and other county’s in the Triangle region now have a model strategy for securing working family farms and protecting water supplies close to the population center. By focusing on the natural assets of Poole Farm, Unique Places was able to see a conservation investment opportunity that pays dividends of healthy food and clean water to the community for many years to come.

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