One Undividable Tract
1,435-acre Good Luck Farms in Dorchester County, conserved by ESLC in 2007, continues to lead the way for Eastern Shore conservation
Conserved in 2007, 1,435-acre Good Luck Farms in Dorchester County is Eastern Shore Land Conservancy’s second largest conservation easement on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, protecting extensive wildlife habitat, responsibly harvested loblolly forest, productive farmland, wetlands, and buffered frontage along the Little Blackwater River. This summer, the families who first conserved Good Luck Farms decided to protect it even further.
When the Luthy and Saathoff families conserved their farm with ESLC in 2007, they were fulfilling the wishes of farmer and forester Otto Luthy, the patriarch of the family, who was born on the Shore to parents who had immigrated from Switzerland. Within the easement, the family reserved the right to subdivide five lots from the property in case one of their heirs might want to live there. Nearly 20 years later, and still actively engaged in the stewardship of their farm, the family has decided that the best way to continue productive agriculture and forestry is by extinguishing all of their reserved lots, amending the conservation easement to forever keep the farm as one undividable tract. The farm is now co-owned by sisters Flora Luthy and Frances Saathoff and co-owned and farmed by their brother-in-law Jim Saathoff, the husband of their late sister Susan.
“It doesn’t seem like hard work,” Frances commented on conserving the farm. “It’s just what you do. You take care of the place where you live. And you also take care of the land. It’s normal—the way we live.”
Combined with three other conservation easements in Caroline and Dorchester Counties, the Saathoff and Luthy families have protected more than 2,132 acres of land—the second-most of any family that has conserved property with ESLC in the last 36 years. Following in Otto’s footsteps, Good Luck Farms is still farmed by multiple generations of family members. When they were in their 40s, Flora and Frances planted thousands of loblolly pine trees on-site. Recently harvested, the farm’s timber continues to help keep the Eastern Shore’s forestry industry alive. The farm is one of many ESLC easements that protect critical Delmarva fox squirrel habitat, which helped to lift the species off the federal endangered species list in December 2015. And one year after Goodluck was conserved with ESLC, the easement restrictions helped to prevent the Mid-Atlantic Power Pathway, a 500-kilovolt powerline that was being planned across Dorchester County from Taylor’s Island to Vienna. All this while the land continues to protect clear air, clean water, climate resilience, hunting opportunities, and more for the entire community.
While the conservation benefits of Good Luck Farms have been heroic, they’ve also been deeply personal. The Luthy’s small cabin on the Little Blackwater River, which Otto built by hand, will indefinitely serve as a gathering place where Otto’s hats and his wife Virginia’s apron still hang on the kitchen hooks, where family can cook meals together, have crab feasts, enjoy the sunset, admire hummingbirds and goldfinches, look across the river to the land their cousins still farm, and admire the skies that are still dark and full of stars in this corner of Dorchester County.
