Lisa and Bill Douglas have granted a conservation easement deed to Madison-Morgan Conservancy that will prohibit the development of almost all of their 332-acre historic Hedgerow Farm on Price Mill Road west of Bishop.
The easement allows the Douglases to continue to own and farm the property and to sell it, but the easement prevents the Douglases or anyone who purchases the land from dividing it or altering its “relatively natural, pastoral, agricultural, forested, open and relatively undeveloped condition.”
This is the second time the Douglases have acted to protect the farm from development.
When they bought the 308 acres that make up the bulk of the property in 2008, it had been zoned for a 60-lot subdivision.
The developer had built lakes and staked out the lots but had not moved forward with streets or other infrastructure. The Douglases downzoned the land for agricultural use and, in 2010, purchased 23.2 acres of undeveloped adjacent land.
The 300 acres protected by the conservation easement consists of 192 acres of natural forest, 45 acres of planted pine forest, 46 acres of pasture, and 17 acres of lakes. Included is 47 acres of prime farmland soils.
“If you ask me who I did it for,” Lisa Douglas said of the decision to grant the conservation easement, “I did it for ‘the little things that run the world’.”
She said she was using the title of a published address by naturalist and entomologist Edward O. Wilson in 1987 at the opening of the invertebrate exhibit at the National Zoological Park Washington, D.C. She called Wilson “a brilliant person who understood nature on a level, on a tiny level.”
Conservation Acreage
The Madison-Morgan easement on the Douglas property complements those held by the Athens Land Trust on 828.6 acres of farmland in the south of the county protected through Oconee County’s Farmland Preservation program.
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| Lisa And Bill Douglas Island Pond 9/15/2026 |
That program protects parts of farms that meet federal soil requirements for prime farmland from subsequent development. The remainder of the farm remains outside the protective easement.
The owners of the 13 farms protected under the county program receive partial compensation from the county and from the federal government for granting the easement.
The Douglases did not receive any compensation for the conservation easement they granted to Madison-Morgan Conservancy, though they will be able to receive credit on their state and federal income taxes for the donation.
The Douglases did carve out three parcels totaling 32 acres that are not part of the easement.
Included are the restored farm house built in about 1900 where the Douglases live and surrounding farm buildings and a barn-like meeting hall built in 2014.
One barn in the middle of the pastures is part of the acreage protected by the conservation easement.
Madison Morgan Conservancy
The Douglases said they frequently visit Madison, have been members of the Madison-Morgan Conservancy for years and were aware of its interest in preserving whole farms. The Conservancy is based in Madison.
“Because we're in south Oconee, we go to Madison almost as often as we would go into Athens for shopping and dining,” Lisa Douglas said. “We know people down there. We've been a part of the Madison-Morgan Cultural Center for a few years as well.”
“And so there's a county line separating us,” she said. “But that's not much in terms of how we live our life. It's a mile and a half down the road.”
The Madison-Morgan Conservancy made the decision two years ago to pursue national accreditation and expand into a regional land trust, according to a news release from the Conservancy posted on Sept. 8 announcing the protection of the Douglas farm.
The closing on that date marks the Conservancy’s first conservation easement outside Morgan County “and is an important milestone in the organization’s growth as an accredited regional land trust,” according to that news release.
“By accepting the Hedgerow Farm conservation easement, the Conservancy assumes the responsibility of monitoring the property and defending the terms of the easement in perpetuity, ensuring that the Douglases’ intentions endure regardless of who owns the property in the future,” the release continued.
“The Conservancy is now accepting conservation easements from landowners in Morgan and adjacent counties,” Christine Watts, Executive Director of the Conservancy, said in an email message on Thursday (9/17/2026).
“And we are working with the other land trusts to meet the demand,” she said. “In Oconee County specifically, we have been working with Athens Land Trust, Oconee River Land Trust, and GA-AL Land Trust.”
“We hope to be able to help them (the Conservancy) encourage other people to do it as well,” Bill Douglas said of conservation easement.
Conversation With Lisa And Bill Douglas
I met with Lisa and Bill on Tuesday (9/15/2026) to go over details of agreement with Madison-Morgan Conservancy, review some of the history of the farm and of their decision to purchase and protect the property, and take some pictures.
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| Price Mill Road In Background 9/15/2026 |
I have been on the farm many times since at least 2014, to visit the farm stand Lisa and Bill often have opened in the summer, to join in bird walks, to participate in discussions of issues in the south of the county, and to visit.
Before riding in a golf cart to take pictures, the three of us sat at the kitchen table and talked for just less than an hour. (The time went quickly, and I didn’t realize we had spent that much time until I checked the timer on my audio recorder when I got home.)
I started by asking Lisa and Bill why they made the decision to grant the conservation easement.
“So when we bought the land in 2008-it fulfilled a lifelong dream of ours since marrying in 1983, to live in an old farmhouse on some land,” Lisa said.
She said they had lived in Atlanta for eight years early in their marriage, and “that cured us of ever wanting to live again in a concrete jungle.”
Coca-Cola, where Bill was working, sent them to Europe, and, according to Lisa, “we lived around Europe near big cities, Oslo, London, and Athens, Greece, yet our houses were always in a more nature-based setting.”
When they came back to the U.S. Lisa and Bill moved to Oconee County and lived in Steepplechase subdivision. And they started looking for farmland to purchase.
Downzoning Land
Bill found the farm listed on the Internet. The land had been rezoned from agricultural to residential by Bob Cain and was ready for development.
Cain’s company, RJC Land Development Inc. bought the 308.9 acres from Ezekiel Lambert III in 2005, according to county tax records.
“It had been surveyed,” Bill said. “All the roads were staked out. All the lots were pegged with stakes.”
“The heavy equipment never came onto the property,” he said. “It was just a surveyor. And he (Cain) had made the decision, given the economic environment, that it wasn't prudent to start building houses.”
“Our first idea was to buy land that would've been recreational,” Lisa said. “And the more we thought about it, the more we realized, with the children going off to college and Bill a few years from retirement, that we could actually find land that we wanted to live on.”
“And so we started looking closer to home literally,” Lisa said. “And Oconee County is home. That is, for certain, isn't it, Bill?”
“We loved this old house,” Lisa said. The house was not occupied and “we weren't sure it could be rescued and restored. But that team of carpenters that led the charge definitely knew what they were doing.”
Lisa and Bill bought the property in May of 2008, contingent on it being rezoned to agriculture.
History Of Farm
Hedgerow Farm has been part in agriculture since the 1850s.
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| Historical Marking, With House In Background 9/15/2026 |
In 2014, the Thomas Miller Chapter of the National Society Colonial Dames installed a historical marker in front of the farm on Price Mill Road, recognizing the property as the Oak Branch Fairgrounds, Racetrack, and Branch Family home.
The racetrack was covered in grass when they bought the farm, Lisa said.
“But you could you could tell where it was,” Bill said. “You could still see it even though it was grass. You could see it on the aerial.”
Along with the house, Lisa and Bill restored the racetrack.
“Robert E. Branch...was not the first deeded landowner,” Lisa said. “That was a Whitlow family. John Whitlow was the first deeded landowner, and that was probably in the late 1830s to around early 1840s.”
Lisa is active in and secretary of the Oconee County Historical Society.
Carve-Outs
A part of the racetrack is in the area carved out from the conservation easement.
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| Map Of Property With Carve Outs In White |
Two of the carve-outs adjoin, and all have frontage on Price Mill Road.
“I think that makes those three parcels not in the CE more valuable because they are now surrounded by a conservation easement,” Lisa said.
“We're giving our heirs the opportunity to sell the CE and keep what we think of as the farming parcels, or sell one of them to help fund living on and (support) whatever upkeep the other parcels would require,” she added.
“And also, not that the CE is terribly onerous...(but) we can keep doing on the land what we have been doing,” she said.
“These three parcels do not get an annual inspection to see if, did we cut something down maybe that we shouldn't have, or did we do this? Did we add something that we shouldn't have?” she said.
“So those three parcels are free and clear for us to make decisions, obviously, without considering the conservation easement,” she said. “But it would align with it, I'm sure.
Tax Benefit
“We do benefit, in ways that maybe other people could not benefit, and I want to be completely transparent about that,” Lisa said.
“So we had to get an appraisal,” Bill said. “So the farmland is worth X.”
“And then they take into consideration the easement,” he continued, “and then that permanently impairs the value of the land because it can no longer be used for residential or commercial or anything of that nature.”
“So then they come up with a post-easement valuation, and the difference between the two is the impaired value, and that's available for us for the future as a potential deduction on our income taxes.”
“There's a limit on how much you can use a year,” he said.
What They Farm
“So when we moved to the farm, Bill was still working for Coca-Cola Enterprises,” Lisa said. “He lived in Atlanta during the week. Our son and daughter were both away at college. So the farmer genes in my DNA went to work, literally.”
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| Bill Douglas With Tarentaise Heifer 9/15/2026 |
“I took a beekeeping course and since then, 2007 and 2008, we have kept bees on the farm,” she said.
“I ordered chicks and kept them for a few weeks in the spare bathtub of our house in Steeplechase until we had restored an old corn crib here to keep the chickens in,” she said. “The realtor for the Steeplechase house said I should move the chicks before we start showing the house.”
“So with bees, chicks, and two horses, we moved to the farm,” she said. “Bill named it Hedgerow because he has always admired hedgerows on farms and rural land, and life does happen on the edge, and hedgerows are important to wildlife, including pollinators.”
“When Robert E. Branch Sr. owned the land, it was called Oak Branch,” she said. “Had we known that at the time we moved here, we would have revived that name. But I did not learn that till later.”
“Through the years, the farm life has grown to include two breeds of heritage chickens, Jacob sheep, and we are now transitioning to a Tunis flock,” she said. “Tarentaise cows, we have a herd of eight,” she said.
“We have pear, and apple trees. A Paw-Paw forest in its early years. Blackberries and blueberries. Garlic, onions, herbs of many kinds, and the produce that grows seasonally–the vegetables that many of our friends and neighbors grow in their gardens.”
“We turned a clay tennis court ...into the main vegetable and berry garden,” she said. “Our early years of keeping poultry, including turkeys, in that tennis court, created a rich bed of soil that we improve with our own compost making and amendments we buy from two local companies.”
“Athens Seed is where we buy our minerals for the horses, cows, and sheep, and the organic grain, with no soy, for the poultry,” she said.
“The health of our gardens and livestock is maintained by the products that our local companies are supplying us, and we thank them for such high quality products.”
“Heritage breeds and heirloom open pollinated plants are the superpowers of homesteading,” she said. “ Animals and plants that have adapted over time and to the local conditions and continue to adapt.”
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| Restored Racetrack 9/15/2026 |
“People ask if we grew up on a farm, and the answer is no,” she said. “I read a lot, books. Books written a hundred years ago and up to books written in the last 10 years. Experience is the best teacher and has no limit to what you can learn if you keep trying.”
“We also seasonally grow pigs, but we don't breed,” Bill chimed in.
“Lee, the farm has been a team effort from the beginning,” Lisa wrote in an email message after our visit. “Victor Ramirez has been on the team for eleven years now. He knows land, landscaping, and livestock from his experience. We are fortunate to know him and his family.”
“Tara Dillard, a garden designer, now friend, helped me cultivate the vision for the garden plan, and now I know the template and can continue with her blessing to consult the land itself in further enterprises.”
The Little Things
“Bob Kane was going to put, I think, approximately 60 houses on the land,” Lisa said.
“They built two ponds that we now call Turtle Pond and Pretty Pond. Island Pond was already here,” she said. “And all three ponds now host herons, kingfishers, frogs, dragonflies, turtles, and of course fish, but we have not stocked them, in recent years.”
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| Lisa With Ripening Persimmons 9/15/2026 |
“So over these years, the farming has gone on,” she said, “but along with farming, we were just noticing nature, wildlife, and the land was sort of rewilding itself, and that is a concept that people go to great lengths to do.”
“But you can also do it through benign neglect,” she said. “It rewilds itself. If you don't pour chemicals on the fields, and attempt to put chemicals in the ponds, too.”
“It was good that I did not know a lot about these things, because I did not do them,” Lisa said. “I did not trust those processes of pouring chemicals into ponds, for one reason or another. And, I think that has been good for the ponds, the birds, the wildlife–the little things that E.O. Wilson said run the world.”
“So we look at a farm and we notice cows and sheep, horses, pigs. You hear chickens. You can't help but notice them,” she said.
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| Horses In Pasture 9/15/2026 |
“But it is those little things that run the world that sort of captured my attention and my heart,” she said. “And so Bill and I both, as we walk the land we notice dragonflies on a field that we left unmowed from May to September.”
“I realized it wasn't just to help the eastern meadowlark with its nest-building. It's where fireflies hang out during the daytime. It's where dragonflies light upon tall grasses.”
“We were able to preserve the farm and the land once, and after living on it for, you know, 15-plus years, we wanted to do it more in a permanent way,” Bill said. “And this conservation easement allowed us to do that.”
“Lisa and Bill are true conservationists,” said Watts, Executive Director of the Madison-Morgan Conservancy, in the Sept. 8 news release. “They made the extraordinary decision to give up development rights so that Hedgerow Farm can remain a farm, forest, and natural landscape for generations to come.”
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