The Reichert family called their weekend retreat in northern Washtenaw County “the farm,” a casual term for a ninety-two-acre paradise of ponds and trees and woods and plants, both cultivated and wild. Soon, the former family getaway will be open to a larger public. Earlier this year, patriarch Dr. Rudy Reichert donated the property to the Legacy Land Conservancy.
It’s the largest single gift of real estate in the conservancy’s forty-year history, and executive director Susan Lackey is excited by its potential. “All our other reserves are entirely wild,” she says. “This preserve’s a more parklike setting.” The Reicherts drained swampland when they purchased it in 1964, carved out rough nature trails, and turned one of the two ponds on Portage Creek into a swimming hole in summer and a skating rink in the winter.
While the donation assures the property will never be developed, neither will it be a public park. A caretaking couple continues to live on a home on the property, and the donation agreement stipulates that visitors must first obtain permission from the Land Conservancy. “[Dr. Reichert] was concerned about it being overused,” Lackey explains. A trial run suggested the potential problems; the conservancy allowed in a few visitors to walk around, but when word got out, crowds appeared, parking spaces were snatched up, and neighbors complained. (The conservancy hopes to provide more parking.)
Lackey and staff are talking with a Boy Scout troop about campouts and with a startup environmental education center about children’s programs. Lackey thinks the preserve may have special appeal for town kids. It’s a place, she says, where “kids can go out and see the wilderness, but they’re only fifteen minutes from home.” Whether visitors will be allowed to swim or skate on the ponds hasn’t been decided.
“The display of flowers in the fall is pretty spectacular,” says Reichert’s son, William, a professor at Duke University, “goldenrod and different kinds of aster and all kinds of wildflowers.” The preserve, Lackey adds, is also “a wonderful place for bird-watching.”
Reichert, a retired cardiologist, played a major role in the expansion of St. Joseph Mercy Hospital; its main outpatient building is named in his honor. But Reichert, who turns ninety-two in June, gives all the credit for the preservation of “the farm” to his late wife, Sue. An amateur biologist, it was she who first suggested they donate the property. “They’re saying ‘Dr. Reichert did a nice thing,'” he says. “Mrs. Reichert did a nice thing!'”
With three of their four kids living out of state, donating the land made sense to both of them, he allows. Reichert recalls that apart from the physical activities the family loved–swimming, skating, horseback riding, hiking–the land offered him escape from his high-pressure job. “You go out in the country and put things in their place.” The donation agreement allows Reichert to visit the property any time.
The Reichert Nature Preserve will officially open sometime this fall. Although Reichert says “I hope not,” when asked about an opening celebration, Lackey says she wants to do “something” to mark the transition of “a very special and magical place.”
