Rose Jenkins Lane
Wednesday, September 23, 2026 10:43 am
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A 121-acre property bordering Chimney Rock State Park is now protected forever, safeguarding exceptional biodiversity and almost three miles of clean mountain streams. This special property has a wide diversity of terrain including boulders, ravines, cliffs, seeps, and streams. These varied habitats are home to many kinds of plants and animals. There are healthy streams for trout, excellent habitat for salamanders, and numerous rare plants.
This special property could have been developed and this extraordinary habitat could have been lost. Instead, Christina Sprecher and Bennett Weston bought the land to protect it. This August, they conveyed a conservation easement to Conserving Carolina, forever protecting 121 acres.
Tom Fanslow, Land Protection Director with Conserving Carolina, says, "We're so grateful that these landowners saw the risk to this land and stepped up to conserve it. This was an incredible opportunity to protect land right next to the state park, with such important wildlife habitat, and almost three miles of headwater streams."
Sprecher noticed this property in Henderson County when she was working as an attorney for Upstate Forever and monitoring real estate listings was part of her job. She wasn't looking to buy land, but this one caught her attention. It had outstanding conservation value--but she knew that's not how most buyers would think about it. Right next to the state park, it would be a prized location for home sites.
When it was still for sale a few months later, she wondered if they could buy it. She and her husband went out to see it, and it was so lush and beautiful. She says, "It's a steep hike but it's worth it. There's just so much life and so much variety in the natural plants and native species. To me, it was rather magical. There's moss everywhere, there's rocks, there's streams trickling."
This extraordinary place moved them to take action.
They bought the land in 2021 and went on to protect it with a conservation easement, donating part of the value. Additional funding for the easement came from the NC Land and Water Fund and the Stanback family.
"Our purpose in buying the property was to protect it," Sprecher says. "We wanted to give something back because we feel like, as humans, we tend to forget that everything we have comes from the earth. To have a chance to protect something feels like giving a little bit back."
With the conservation easement, the property remains private land, but its forests, creeks, and wildlife habitat are protected forever. This private conservation land also enhances public land in Chimney Rock State Park by expanding the wild, protected natural area.
Conserving Carolina's executive director, Kieran Roe, notes that the land trust has already helped to protect thousands of acres in this area. Conserving Carolina's earlier projects include:
• 1,568 acres called World's Edge added to the park
• 1,525 acres at Buffalo Creek Park
• 1,144 acres at Joel Ridge Nature Preserve
• 484 acres at Transfiguration Preserve
• 437 acres at Youngs Mountain.
Roe says, "When you look at all of these parks and preserves as well as numerous smaller protected properties--and you see how we're linking these conservation lands together--you can see that these efforts are adding up for this landscape in a dramatic way."
Ecologist Owen Carson who works for Equinox Environmental and also serves on the board of Conserving Carolina says that he was excited when he was asked to survey this property. "I knew I would be walking into something pretty special. It's situated in an incredibly biodiverse part of the world," he says.
On his steep hike through the property, he was rewarded with finds including a rare plant that he describes as a species of "cryptic, ancient fern." He also found unique communities of plants and animals living in the seeps where water first emerges from the ground--what he calls "the true headwaters."
Carson notes that having large expanses of connected conservation land can help plants and animals adapt to a changing climate and to the impacts from extreme weather like Hurricane Helene. One survival strategy is to move. Plants shift their range; animals migrate. Having connected conservation land gives them better chances to find the habitat they need.
"This project exemplifies how conservation land can lead to resilience for plant and animal species," Carson says. "In the surrounding landscape, there are places that have been developed that will never be habitat for anything again. So creating refugia for plants and animals by protecting land definitely serves the region in terms of resilience."