Some assets are measured by their market value. Others are measured by what they contribute to a community over time. The Southern Woodlands may have an appraised value, but their importance to Mount Gretna cannot be understood in dollars alone.

The Southern Woodlands are part of a larger story—one that began with the early years of Pennsylvania Chautauqua and continues today...

This summer marks the 135th season of Pennsylvania Chautauqua.

The Chautauqua began in 1892. In its early years, the organization acquired the land that would become the foundation of the community we know today. For more than a century, portions of that historic landholding have remained under Pennsylvania Chautauqua ownership as stockholders have come and gone.

The railroad brought people to Mount Gretna.

The woods gave them a reason to stay.

For generations, people have been drawn to this place by a combination of things that are difficult to separate: the Chautauqua experience, the forested setting, the cottages, the culture, the traditions, the sense of community, and the feeling of being surrounded by nature. The people created the Pennsylvania Chautauqua, but the landscape sustains it.

Today, we are being asked to consider the future of the Southern Woodlands. While much of the discussion has focused on approximately 15 acres of woodland, I believe the larger question is this:

What responsibility comes with owning land that has shaped Mount Gretna for generations?

If this land is simply a real estate asset, then selling a portion of it for conservation may seem like a logical choice.

If, however, this land is part of a larger inheritance — a place where nature, learning, recreation, culture, and community could exist together — then ownership becomes part of the conversation.

The Southern Woodlands are not simply an undeveloped tract of land. They are part of the original Coleman tract that became the Pennsylvania Chautauqua.

For more than 130 years, generations of Chautauquaians have carried responsibility for this land. Leadership has changed. Priorities have changed. The community has changed. Yet the remaining communal lands from the original Coleman tract have remained part of the Pennsylvania Chautauqua.

Throughout that history, portions of the original landholding were developed into the community we know today. Cottage lots were created. Homes were built. Roads were extended. Yet the remaining communal lands continued to provide the forested backdrop that gives Mount Gretna its character.

The proposal now before stockholders is different.

It would not transfer land from one part of the Pennsylvania Chautauqua community to another. It would transfer ownership outside the Chautauqua altogether.

I support permanently protecting the Southern Woodlands.

I do not support selling them.

Not because I oppose conservation, but because conservation and ownership are not mutually exclusive.

A conservation alternative already exists.

Last year, stockholders were presented with Resolution B, which would permanently protect the Southern Woodlands through a conservation easement while retaining ownership. In addition, a stewardship proposal was developed to create a long-term ecological stewardship plan for all remaining Chautauqua-owned communal lands.

That proposal was intentionally broader than the Southern Woodlands because the Southern Woodlands are not the only communal lands remaining from the original Coleman tract. They are simply the portion receiving the most attention today.

The goal was never simply to save 15 acres.

The goal was to create a framework for stewarding all of the remaining communal lands entrusted to us.

One of the arguments made in favor of the sale is that it would provide funding for stewardship. Yet the same conservation tools being used to support acquisition are available to Pennsylvania Chautauqua itself.

That is the irony at the center of this discussion.

If conservation is the objective, we can achieve it ourselves through an easement and stewardship approach that retains ownership.

We can place a conservation easement on the Southern Woodlands.

We can pursue Community Conservation Partnerships Program funding.

We can seek grants for stewardship, restoration, habitat improvement, invasive species management, forest health, trail protection, and ecological resilience.

We can permanently protect the land while retaining ownership of it.

In other words, the choice before us is not conservation versus no conservation.

It is conservation through sale or conservation through stewardship.

One transfers ownership away from the Pennsylvania Chautauqua.

The other keeps the land within the community while protecting it permanently.

Protected land continues to provide value. It protects the character of the community. It supports wildlife habitat. It strengthens the forest that surrounds us. It remains eligible for future stewardship and conservation funding. It continues to connect future generations to the landscape that helped define Mount Gretna from the beginning.

Most importantly, it remains part of the Pennsylvania Chautauqua.

Previous generations preserved this land through difficult times. Through economic downturns, changing vacation habits, world wars, the Great Depression, and periods when the future of the Pennsylvania Chautauqua was far less certain than it is today, they continued to steward it. 

They could have sold. They didn't.

Now we have the opportunity to protect it permanently without giving up ownership.

Why would we choose otherwise?

The question before us is not whether the Southern Woodlands should be conserved.

The question is whether we still value the land that made Mount Gretna enough to keep it as part of the Pennsylvania Chautauqua.

For me, the answer is yes.

— Deb Simpson, Chautauqua Stockholder and Mount Gretna Resident