Mission + History

A History Rooted in Community

Westchester Land Trust was founded by a group of Lewisboro and Bedford residents who were concerned about the increasing pace of development in their towns, and who wanted to take action to protect environmentally-important open space and the character of their communities.

The driving force behind Westchester Land Trust’s formation was its president and chief executive officer, Louis McCagg, a lanky 6′ 3″ man with an unmistakable Bostonian accent and a reddish-blond shock of hair. McCagg was a graduate of Harvard University who was a coalition builder in civil rights, education, urban planning and land conservation.

McCagg felt that the forces of land protection and responsible development were out of sync in Westchester County, and that residents had to act to restore a balance between preservation and growth. In McCagg’s words:

“The first step in carrying out this objective is to form a Westchester Land Trust which will seek to accomplish two goals: First, to educate or raise the consciousness of all categories of landowners…to think through what they want to do with their lands to achieve environmental and economic objectives; and second, to provide facilitating support to local authorities seeking to implement sound housing policies.”

Under McCagg’s guidance, Westchester Land Trust was formed in September 1988, organized around a board of directors and an advisory committee, and supported by volunteers and a small staff.

Our founding leadership, directed by McCagg, prioritized the preservation of land, education about the importance of open space, and working with municipalities to address affordable housing issues. The projects we championed during our first years were inspirational and diverse. We helped to establish community gardens in Yonkers, White Plains, and Peekskill, and also helped plan the restoration of Untermeyer Garden on the shore of the Hudson River. Founding members helped with river clean-ups, and hosted many county-wide lectures and forums to educate about smart growth and planning, and conservation planning.

Since our founding in 1988, we have preserved more than 9,000 acres of open space, including 1,000 acres of preserves owned by the organization, many of which are free and open to the public year round. We hold more than 200 conservation easements and have protected land in more than 30 communities and continue to seek land preservation opportunities throughout the county. To this day, we work with many of the donors, landowners, and partners who have been with us since the very early days, and whose support remains vital to our success. We are adapting our organization, and our approach, to be more successful in broadening our impact throughout our service territory. This means returning to the places our founding leadership began—working with diverse communities: be it in the urban center; the southern coastal communities; river towns to the west; and large landscape-scale properties in the northernmost reaches of Putnam County.

One of the first land trusts in the country to be accredited, today Westchester Land Trust is recognized nationally as a strong organization with a skilled and dedicated staff, a deep base of supporters and incredible volunteers, and a solid financial base, to provide the foundation for success in the years ahead.

We are committed to persistent learning, educating, and training about race, bias, and systemic racism. We are proactively adjusting our organizational systems, structures, and policies to increase equity, address opportunities for growth, and expand the spaces in our organizational culture for those who have not been historically included.

Westchester Land Trust is based in Bedford Hills and is governed by a Board of Directors, which meets quarterly. Westchester Land Trust is a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization.