ODNR announces new direction for Malabar Farm State Park

LUCAS, OH – Ohio Depart­ment of Nat­ural Resources’ (ODNR) Direc­tor James Zehringer announced a new vision and a series of cap­i­tal improve­ments for Mal­abar Farm State Park.

“Louis Brom­field showed farm­ers first­hand how we could improve our farm­land and pro­tect our drink­ing water,” Zehringer said. “Our new vision for Mal­abar Farm involves an approach to agri­cul­ture that empha­sizes sound envi­ron­men­tal con­ser­va­tion prac­tices that will cre­ate health­ier soil and water, two things that Brom­field always strived to main­tain on his farm.”

ODNR’s ini­tial cap­i­tal improve­ment project at Mal­abar Farm includes updat­ing the exte­rior of the Big House. Cur­rently, rot­ting boards and more than 14 lay­ers of paint cover this his­toric home. ODNR will replace the boards and repaint the Big House to return it once again to the beau­ti­ful farm­house that Brom­field built. ODNR has pledged up to $500,000 in cap­i­tal funds for updates and improve­ments at Mal­abar Farm.

“The Big House has needed this improve­ment for many years,” Zehringer said of the paint­ing project. “The Mal­abar Farm Foun­da­tion recently raised money to replace the win­dows in the green­house, and we want to ensure we do our part to restore the grandeur and excite­ment to Mal­abar Farm.”

In order to achieve this new agri­cul­tural vision for Mal­abar Farm State Park, Zehringer announced that Korre Boyer of Lucas will be serv­ing as the park’s new full-time man­ager. As a farmer and local res­i­dent, Boyer appre­ci­ates both the his­toric impor­tance of Bromfield’s agri­cul­tural accom­plish­ments while under­stand­ing the unique place Mal­abar Farm occu­pies in the local community.

Addi­tion­ally, Boyer’s work as a farmer, a teacher and his role with the Ohio Farm Bureau Fed­er­a­tion make him the ideal per­son to imple­ment the farm­ing tech­niques ODNR intends to apply at Mal­abar Farm State Park. In order to achieve this new vision for Mal­abar Farm State Park, Boyer stressed that he would col­lab­o­rate closely with the ODNR Divi­sions of Wildlife, Forestry and Soil and Water. Boyer will start in this new posi­tion on Dec. 3.

Mal­abar Farm was estab­lished by Mans­field native and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Louis Brom­field in 1939. Dur­ing his time at Mal­abar, Brom­field penned a num­ber of best-selling books and enter­tained count­less Hol­ly­wood leg­ends. In 1945, the Big House at Mal­abar Farm played host to the wed­ding of film idols Humphrey Bog­art and Lau­ren Bacall.

Since tak­ing own­er­ship of Mal­abar Farm in 1972, ODNR has been ded­i­cated to pre­serv­ing the Big House and its many arti­facts just as Brom­field left them. These efforts to pre­serve Bromfield’s life and farm­ing philoso­phies make Mal­abar Farm State Park one of the most unique and his­toric des­ti­na­tions in Ohio.

ODNR ensures a bal­ance between wise use and pro­tec­tion of our nat­ural resources for the ben­e­fit of all. Visit the ODNR web­site at ohiodnr.com.

Posted by Rob Treynor on Dec 31 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.