Peconic Land Trust: Preserve Spotlight -- Red Dirt Preserve, Amagansett

Places to Vist

RED DIRT PRESERVE

North Amagansett, East Hampton Town

The North Amagansett area of East Hampton has benefited tremendously from the generosity and conservation ethic of many people. The result has been the preservation of over 600 acres of woodland which includes Red Dirt Preserve. The Trust purchased this 10-acre preserve in 2000 from Drs. Robert Abel and Helen Carter.

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Red Dirt Preserve is an upland forest that hosts American Beech, sugar maples, and flowering dogwoods. Highbush blueberry is the dominant understory shrub. The preserve offers habitat for a wide variety of sensitive species including great horned owls, countless migrating birds, and Eastern box turtle.

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It’s adjacent to the Trust’s 189-acre Silver Beech Preserve that was donated in 2003 by Margaret de Cuevas and Deborah Carmichael. These neighboring preserves are important to protecting our area’s biodiversity, drinking water, and natural resources, as well as combating climate change. They sit above the deepest part of the aquifer — our sole source of drinking water — and are part of the Town of East Hampton’s Water Recharge Overlay District.

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Through land conservation, we are all working together

to improve the quality of our precious water resources.

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This land protection of the Red Dirt Preserve was made possible by a gift from an anonymous donor, along with the purchase of a conservation easement by the Town of East Hampton.

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It’s a great place to explore! The winter landscapes of Red Dirt and Silver Beech Preserves are spectacular, so take time for a woodland walk this weekend. You can learn more about these preserves — as well as other nearby woods to hike — by checking out the Places to Visit section on our website.

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And to learn more about how we manage the land we’ve conserved, check out our latest newsletter with the cover story, Stewardship: for the Love of Nature.

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