Muckross, home of Edgar May, becomes state park

The home of the late Edgar May, a well-remembered Springfield community leader and legislator, has been given to the state of Vermont, creating the state’s 54th state park, said Craig Whipple, director of state parks.


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Photo by Len Emery The home of the late Edgar May of Springfield, known as Muckross, has become the state’s newest park, according to his final wishes. Published August 23, 2016 in the Rutland Herald Muckross, home of Edgar May, becomes state park By SUSAN SMALLHEER SPRINGFIELD — Muckross State Park is finally a reality. The home of the late Edgar May, a well-remembered Springfield community leader and legislator, has been given to the state of Vermont, creating the state’s 54th state park, said Craig Whipple, director of state parks. May, who died in December 2012 at the age of 83, had been negotiating with the state for his home to be turned into a community-oriented state park, with an emphasis on serving children. Whipple said the state would reach out to the community to formulate a long-term vision for the property. The land lends itself to hiking, fishing, biking and skiing in season, and there are plans for a summer day camp for children. He said the state has plans to renovate one of the residences, the gatehouse, to maintain a presence in the remote area. The state’s approach for the rest of the buildings, he said, was to take a “stabilize” approach. “It’s a significant resource and extremely valuable. We want to preserve them,” he said. May was the driving force behind the creation of the Edgar May Health and Recreation Center in Springfield. He had served his adopted hometown as a state representative and a Windsor County state senator, before retiring in 1990, later becoming CEO of the Special Olympics. He had earlier won a Pulitzer Prize while he was a reporter in Buffalo, New York. Whipple said the immediate work would include engineering to evaluate the dirt road leading into the park, as well as a bridge and the dam at the end of Muckross Pond. “We need some fundamental infrastructure work,” Whipple said. “And we will start a process of determining the long-range strategy for the park.” May’s home included several Adirondack-style camp buildings, which included his home and several other buildings, including a gatehouse. The park will include about 200 acres, along the Black River and south of the center of town. Whipple said the Kunin family, including May’s sister, former Gov. Madeleine May Kunin, and her two sons, Peter and Adam, were co-executors of May’s estate. Peter Kunin, a Burlington lawyer, said Monday that his uncle had long wanted his rural home to be turned into a park to benefit children, especially children from families of limited means. “On behalf of the Kunin family, we are absolutely pleased. This is exactly what Edgar wanted,” he said. He said that the park would be accessible “to everybody in Springfield, including children.” Muckross Park was the name given the Adirondack-style estate by its original owner, W.D. Woolson, an executive with the Jones & Lamson Machine Tool Co. in Springfield. Woolson took the name, Kunin said, from an Irish castle in Killarney, County Kerry. May had owned Muckross since 1965. May, a native of Switzerland who emigrated to the United States with his mother and sister to flee the Holocaust, had adopted Springfield as his hometown after he was a local reporter with the former Bellows Falls Times. The Kunin family has donated funds to Vermont Parks Forever, a nonprofit organization that works to support Vermont’s parks, to help with the renovations, Whipple said. He said the process of transferring the property had been long and involved, and included some title work and some environmental cleanup. “There was an old dump. Nothing significant but it needed to be cleaned up,” Whipple said. But for now, he said, it’s public land and is open to the public. But, he said, the road leading into Muckross needs work and would remain gated and closed. “People can walk in there if they want to,” he said. http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20160823/NEWS01/160829827