Elaine Taylor handed over eight acres of Wilton property to Aspetuck Land Trust on Tuesday. The land, valued at $900,000, sits directly across the road from her home in Weston. It was the same stretch of fields where Taylor and Christopher Plummer walked their four dogs for four decades.
The donation wasn’t a standalone act. The trust simultaneously purchased an adjacent eight-acre parcel from Plummer’s estate for roughly $900,000, a steep discount off its $1.78 million market value. Executive Director David Brant called the deal a "bargain sale" that allowed the organization to skip full market costs. Together, the two transactions protect 16 acres of open fields and stone walls.
Taylor told CTInsider the property was woven into their daily routine. They would loop through the fields, sometimes multiple times a day. "It has been part of our lives for 40 years," she said. Plummer, who died in 2021, won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 2012 for Beginners at age 82. His earlier fame came from Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music in 1965.
This parcel is a piece of a larger puzzle. Aspetuck Land Trust aims to assemble a 750-acre nature reserve along the Weston-Wilton border. They have already protected 255 acres that link with other conservation zones. Since 2017, the group secured 169 acres with help from Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. The goal is to stop forest fragmentation and create a connected habitat.
The Weston Wilton Forest Reserve is now open to the public. Brant plans to lead guided hikes through the new trails. The project aligns with a broader Green Corridor spanning Weston, Easton, Fairfield, and Westport. The next step involves coordinating with the Wilton Land Conservation Trust to shield remaining habitats from development.