Tilly Foster Activities Fold as Preserve Putnam Stops Operating Farm
By the end of the month, Tilly Foster Farm will officially come to an end of an era.
By January 31, the Tilly Foster Farm Museum and all activities will cease as the Whipple family and Preserve Putnam, which were managing the farm, are leaving after all financial support ended late last year. The farm held a closing sale for all household, office and farm equipment last weekend and will do the same this upcoming weekend.
All rare farm animals have already been sold off to appropriate and responsible owners Executive Director– at least for a couple more weeks—Meredith Whipple said last Thursday.
The Putnam County Antique Machinery Association’s collection will remain on the farm and the Rock and Roll Museum will also stay open to the public on weekends.
In an interview, Whipple expressed disappointment that a lease that was suppose to last 40 years, ended after just five.
“We thought we were going to be here for 40 years,” Whipple said.
After countless issues that included lack of county government support and attacks from private residents, Whipple said her brother George Whipple, who put in much of the monetary support for Tilly Foster, felt underappreciated and decided it was no longer worth contributing to Putnam County.
Preserve Putnam, which also has members like Sheriff Don Smith and former county executive Robert Bondi on board, has done three projects for the county. They include Tilly Foster, the chapel at the Veterans Memorial Park and Cornerstone Park in the middle of Carmel.
“There’s no thanks, there’s no appreciation,” Whipple said. “So we said forget it.”
“It’s not worth our while at all,” she added.
Whipple also said the harassment of a couple private citizens that brought suit against Preserve Putnam and wanted to run the Whipples out of Tilly Foster was another factor in the departure.
County Executive MaryEllen Odell said in an interview she’s “heartbroken” and expressed gratitude to the Whipple family “for all their generosity.”
“That farm is better today than the day the Whipples came on by extraordinary measures,” she added.
Odell said the county would ensure the entire inventory owned by Preserve Putnam was liquidated appropriately and would also take an inventory of all the county property still on the farm.
Going forward, Odell noted she would like to see Tilly Foster’s repositioning mirror what the county did for the Putnam County Golf Course in Mahopac that’s been under new management. The general manager of the golf course, Mike McCall could be included in reworking the farm, Odell said.
Still, Legislator Dini LoBue, who has been critical of the Whipples and the handling of the farm since the lease was broken, said she’s disgusted that Odell is allowing Whipple to have a sale without getting the financials records the legislature requires.
She didn’t like the fact that Whipple was holding a “tag sale” on county property and is wary about what exactly is being sold.
Elaborating on the financial records, LoBue said Preserve Putnam kept submitting the same documentations, which are tax returns comingled with the Cornerstone Park and chapel financials.
She said it states in the lease that a separate bank account was supposed to be set up for all deposits and transactions for the farm. While LoBue said a representative for Whipple said he had a separate account, the legislature hasn’t seen it.
“All of this is a circus,” she said.
Meredith Whipple countered the claim about lack of providing financials, strongly asserting that her family has followed everything within the lease and other county, state and federal laws.
“We followed every single thing in the lease and gave them every piece of paper that we were required,” Whipple said. “Yet they still harassed us and we just couldn’t afford continue.”
