Duke Farms is a 2,700 acre center for environmental stewardship in Hillsborough, NJ, that restores the natural environment, invests in sustainability innovation while offering visitors free inclusive and accessible resources for finding their place in nature. [1]
Duke Farms | |
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Raritan Valley Farm | |
Type | Nature reserve, park |
Location | Hillsborough, New Jersey |
Nearest city | New Brunswick, New Jersey |
Coordinates | 40°32′41″N74°37′27″W / 40.544852°N 74.624059°W [2] |
Area | 2,700 acres (1,100 ha) (total) 943 acres (382 ha) (open to public) |
Elevation | 98 feet (30 m) [3] |
Opened | Raritan Valley Farm: 1893 Duke Farms: 1899 Duke Farms & Gardens: 2012 |
Closed | Raritan Valley Farm: 1899 Duke Farms: 1915 |
Founder | James Buchanan Duke |
Designer | J.B. Duke Doris Duke |
Operated by | Doris Duke Charitable Foundation |
Open | Nov 1–Mar31: 8:30am–4:30pm Apr 1–Oct 31: 8:30am–6:00pm Closed Sundays and Mondays. Saturday visitation requires reservation of a free entry pass.' |
Status | Operational |
Plants | see Duke Gardens for details |
Parking | 365 spots |
Website | dukefarms |
Duke Farms previously served as an estate that was established by James Buchanan Duke, an American entrepreneur who founded Duke Power and the American Tobacco Company, and owned by his daughter, Doris Duke. Located in Hillsborough, New Jersey, the property is operated and managed by the Doris Duke Foundation after the death of Doris Duke, James B. Duke's daughter and the second owner. After extensive reorganization, Duke Farms was opened to the public on May 19, 2012.
Starting in 1893, "Buck" Duke started to buy land next to the Raritan River in rural New Jersey. His vision was to create a farm similar to those in North Carolina where he had grown up. He engaged a number of architects and engineers to fulfill his dream, including Buckenham & Miller, James Leal Greenleaf and Ellen Biddle Shipman. Eventually he had assembled about 2,700 acres (11 km²) of farm and wood lands that contained 45 buildings, 9 lakes, 18 miles of roads, 810 acres of woodlands, 464 acres of grassland bird habitat and 1.5 miles of stone walls. [4] [5]
Duke died in 1925, and his 12-year-old daughter, Doris Duke, gained control of the property after suing her mother, [6] who had wanted to sell it. [7] She restored it and moved in at the age of fifteen. [6] She was very invested in the property and made it her main residence. She incorporated innovative ecological farming methods she learned from Louis Bromfield's Malabar Farm. Starting in 1958 she created and designed over a five-year period a unique botanical display in the Horace Trumbauer conservatory and greenhouses known as Duke Gardens. [8] Duke Gardens opened to the public in 1964. [9] Doris Duke died in 1993. [10]
Duke Farms is a center of the Doris Duke Foundation. A decision was made to renovate the estate as "a model of environmental stewardship in the 21st Century and (to) inspire visitors to become informed stewards of the land." [11] While reorganizing the estate little was accessible to the public. In 2008, DF created some controversy when it permanently closed Duke Gardens demolishing the indoor display gardens that had been created by Doris Duke. [8] Over the years, the DF created new indoor and outdoor display gardens that are eco-friendly, use native plants, and are wheelchair accessible. In the process of rehabilitation numerous invasive foreign plants were removed including Norwegian maple and Asian Ailanthus and replaced by native species. The property has a number of notable trees, including four of the ten oldest trees of New Jersey, [12] and two champion trees, a Northern Red Oak and an Amur Cork Tree. [13] On May 19, 2012, Duke Farms opened to the public. After a $45-million renovation, Duke Farms now serves as a 2,700-acre environmental center in Hillsborough, N.J. that aims to inspire people to become guardians of the planet, and to be a free, inclusive, accessible resource for helping everyone find their place in nature. Duke Farms' restored habitats now include 30 endangered species and 230 varieties of birds, among which are the great blue heron and the bald eagle. [14] [15]
In 2016, the mansion where Doris Duke lived was demolished in order to open up the north side of the property. [16] This opened up access to the Borough of Raritan and Raritan Greenway trails.
Scouting in New Jersey has a long history, from the 1910s to the present day, serving thousands of youth in programs that suit the environment in which they live. The second Boy Scouts of America National Headquarters was in North Brunswick, although it was referred to in BSA publications as being in neighboring New Brunswick.
Hillsborough Township is a township in Somerset County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Located in the Raritan Valley region, the township is a suburban and exurban bedroom community of New York City within the New York Metropolitan Area. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 43,276, an increase of 4,973 (+13.0%) from the 2010 census count of 38,303, which in turn reflected an increase of 1,669 (+4.6%) from the 36,634 counted in the 2000 census.
The Raritan River is a major river of New Jersey. Its watershed drains much of the mountainous area of the central part of the state, emptying into the Raritan Bay on the Atlantic Ocean.
The Delaware and Raritan Canal is a canal in central New Jersey, built in the 1830s, that connects the Delaware River to the Raritan River. It was an efficient and reliable means of transportation of freight between Philadelphia and New York City, transporting anthracite coal from eastern Pennsylvania during much of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The canal allowed shippers to cut many miles off the existing route from the Pennsylvania Coal Region down the Delaware, around Cape May, and up the occasionally treacherous Atlantic Ocean coast to New York City.
The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is a botanical garden at Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York City. Established in 1891, it is located on a 250-acre (100 ha) site that contains a landscape with over one million living plants; the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, a greenhouse containing several habitats; and the LuEsther T. Mertz Library, which contains one of the world's largest collections of botany-related texts. As of 2016, over a million people visit the New York Botanical Garden annually.
Cheesequake State Park is a 1,610-acre (2.52 sq mi) state park located in Old Bridge, Middlesex County, New Jersey, in the United States.
James Buchanan Duke was an American tobacco and electric power industrialist best known for the introduction of modern cigarette manufacture and marketing, and his involvement with Duke University. He was the founder of the American Tobacco Company in 1890.
Drumthwacket is the official residence of the governor of the U.S. state of New Jersey at 354 Stockton Street in Princeton, New Jersey, near the state capital of Trenton.
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Natirar is an estate spanning 491 acres (1.99 km2) in Peapack-Gladstone, Far Hills and Bedminster, in Somerset County, New Jersey, United States. Its name is a reverse spelling of Raritan. The complex was built between 1910 and 1912. In 2003 it was sold by the estate of Hassan II, late King of Morocco, to Somerset County, New Jersey, and is now administered by the Somerset County Park Commission. Approximately 90 acres (360,000 m2) of the estate have been leased to develop that portion of the estate into an exclusive hotel, spa, restaurant complex.
Doris Duke was an American billionaire tobacco heiress, philanthropist, and socialite. She was often called "the richest girl in the world". Her great wealth, luxurious lifestyle, and love life attracted significant press coverage, both during her life and after her death.
Duke Gardens in Somerset County, New Jersey, were among the most significant glass house collections in America. Created by Doris Duke, they were larger than the New York Botanical Garden's Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, and were open to the public from 1964. They were closed by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation on or before May 25, 2008 and the plant material was donated to public gardens throughout the United States.
The West Trenton Line is a proposed NJ Transit (NJT) commuter rail service that would be operated mostly on the CSX Transportation Trenton Subdivision, connecting West Trenton Station in Ewing Township, New Jersey with Newark Penn Station in Newark, New Jersey. The route would connect with the Raritan Valley Line at Bridgewater and the SEPTA West Trenton Line at West Trenton. As of 2007, NJT's estimate of the cost of creating a passenger line to West Trenton was $219 million. The project is still on the books, but no funding for the proposal has been secured to this date.
The Nevius Street Bridge once carried car traffic across the Raritan River between Hillsborough Township and Raritan Borough in Somerset County, New Jersey, United States. In the 1840s a wooden bridge crossed at this location. The current 150-foot-long (46 m) bridge was built in 1886 by the Wrought Iron Bridge Company of Canton, Ohio. It is a double intersection Pratt truss bridge. The construction of the nearby John Basilone Veterans Memorial Bridge replaced the Nevius Street Bridge in 2005; the bridge now serves as a pedestrian bridge, connecting River Road in Hillsborough with the Raritan River Greenway. The bridge, described using its historic name, Raritan Bridge, was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 12, 1992 for its engineering and method of construction.
The James B. Duke House is a mansion at 1 East 78th Street, on the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. The building was designed by Horace Trumbauer, who drew heavily upon the design of Château Labottière in Bordeaux. Constructed between 1909 and 1912 as a private residence for businessman James Buchanan Duke and his family, the building has housed the New York University (NYU)'s Institute of Fine Arts since 1959.
The Parker Homestead is a historic home and grounds in Little Silver, Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States, located at 235 Rumson Road near Sickles Park. The main house was originally built circa 1720, and includes materials from an earlier structure the early and late 19th century, and the 1910s and 1920s. It is one of the oldest extant buildings in the state. The farmstead which also includes three outlying barns were listed on the New Jersey Register of Historic Places and the National Register of Historic Places. in 2011.
The Van Veghten House is a historic building in the Finderne section of Bridgewater Township, New Jersey. It was built around 1725 and served as the headquarters of Quartermaster General Nathanael Greene during the second Middlebrook encampment (1778–79) in the American Revolutionary War. The Somerset County Historical Society owns the house and uses it as its headquarters, including a museum and library. The early 18th-century Old York Road passed by here connecting Philadelphia to New York City. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 10, 1979 and noted as representing "one of the few remaining Raritan River mansions".
The Walker, Combs, Hartshorne, Oakley Farmstead is located in the historic district of the village of West Freehold, a part of Freehold Township in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States. The house was built in 1686 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 14, 1990.
The Morris County Park Commission (MCPC) is a board of commissioners that manages parks, facilities, and historic sites in Morris County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.
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