For almost twenty years, Past Designs has been fortunate to work with the staff and volunteers of the John Hay National Wildlife Refuge in planning and implementation of their landscape preservation efforts. In the 1880’s John Hay and his family began their purchase of 1500 acres of land on the eastern shores of Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire. From their initial purchase to 1987, three generations of the Hay family summered here. From 1906 to the 1960’s Clarence Hay and his wife Alice Appleton Hay developed an extensive series of gardens and landscape rooms, including a 1-acre rock garden, formal rose terrace, walled perennial garden, rhododendron walk, tennis courts, and a network of trails, roads, buildings and other spaces to serve the needs of their summer estate. Today approximately 750 acres is open to the public, owned and operated in two separate parcels by the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. A non-profit managing partner, the Friends of the Fells, is directly responsible for the management and programming of the Fish and Wildlife portion. Past Designs has worked with the Friends to develop policy statements, partnership agreements, and preservation plans for the property. The most recent project, begun in 2005, is a master plan for the “Old Garden,” – approximately 5 acres of designed landscape spaces begun by the Hay family in 1906.