More than three years after the Mount Rose Preserve was created at the site of the former Western Electric/AT&T property on Carter Road, an additional parcel of land for the 350-acre public park has been secured.
On Oct. 9, New Jersey Conservation Foundation purchased 11 acres where the Western Electric’s large conference center/hotel once stood on the west side of Carter Road. Opened in 1959, the center was abandoned many years ago. The building was finally demolished and the land restored to open space per the terms of New Jersey Conservation’s contract to purchase the site.
“These 11 acres were the proverbial hole in the doughnut, since the surrounding land was preserved in 2015,” Michele S. Byers, executive director, said in a statement. “We’re now looking forward to transforming it into a meadow of native plants and wildflowers, with a new trail for the public.”
New Jersey Conservation paid $52,250 for the land. “We’re very grateful to Mrs. Betty Wold Johnson, whose generosity made the final 11-acre purchase possible,” Byers said in a statement.
The bulk of the Mount Rose Preserve was acquired in April 2015 by a partnership of more than a dozen public agencies and nonprofit organizations, as part of a project to convert the 1950s corporate campus into a public park.
In addition to New Jersey Conservation, Mercer County and Hopewell Township, partners included Hopewell Valley Citizens Group Inc., Friends of Hopewell Valley Open Space (FoHVOS), New Jersey Green Acres Program, The Watershed Institute, Lawrence Hopewell Trail, Hopewell Borough, Pennington Borough, Friends of Princeton Open Space, D&R Greenway Land Trust, Lawrence Township and Princeton.
Volunteers at the 2017 Mount Rose Preserve Bioblitz. (Photo courtesy of New Jersey Conservation Foundation.),
