Common Ground is a campaign blog series on preserving what makes Bernards Township worth protecting.

Sitting in a lawn chair at Ross Farm at dusk or walking past the barn at Farmstead midday, it’s easy to forget these places might not have survived to become what they are today. Both were saved not by chance, but by deliberate choices — made by families, by neighbors, and by local government working together.

When owner Edmund Ross died in 2005, his children honored his wishes and sold the 61-acre estate to Somerset County, preserving it as open space rather than selling to a developer. Today it’s a living gathering space for concerts and other community events. Since 2015, it has also been the home to “Boudinot’s Giving Garden” where volunteers plant and grow produce which is distributed to local foodbanks and other charitable organizations. 

The Ross Family chose preservation, working with Somerset County to place the 61-acre estate into permanent protection as open space. Today, under the name Boudinot-Southard-Ross Estate, the property is designated on the National and State Registers of Historic Places — not as a relic behind a red velvet rope but as a living gathering space for music, art, and community events. 

The Kennedy Martin Stelle Farmstead tells a similar story, on a more local note. In 1999, Bernards Township used open space funds to acquire the 36-acre tract along the Passaic River that the farmstead sits on. After more than 250 years as a working farm, the buildings could easily have been left to decay. Instead, in 2004, a group of local volunteers stepped up— the Friends of the KMS Farmstead — and took on the demanding work of restoration. What was once a farmhouse and barn is now Farmstead Arts, a home for music, history, and the arts. 

Neither of these places was preserved because it was easy. Both took residents, families, and local government choosing the same side — the side of keeping something worth keeping. That’s the common thread that runs through Ross Farm, the Farmstead, Schmidt Park, and every open space we’ve protected: someone decided it mattered enough to preserve.

When we come together at these farms today, whether for a concert under the stars or to attend an art class in a restored farmhouse, we’re standing on the result of that choice. This is what preservation builds: not just protected land, but a place where community members can meet to paint, relax, enjoy good music, or tend a garden on common ground.

For more information see: https://rossfarm.org/ and https://farmsteadarts.org/

— Joan Bannan