The Tennessee River Gorge at sunsetConservation easement
A voluntarily donated (or occasionally sold) legally binding real estate agreement to limit or ban certain uses and development on a piece of property in perpetuity. Each easement is individually tailored to best suit the needs of the landowner and either a public or private agency. Easement agreements can range from limited-development agreements or a guarantee not to subdivide, to complete forfeiture of soil, mineral and timber rights. This guarantees that even if a property is sold or inherited, all future landowners must adhere to the requirements of the easement, protecting the property forever.
When Robert M. Davenport lay on his deathbed following an unexpectedly short battle with a rapidly progressing cancer, he thought about the land that would outlast him. In particular, he thought of the waterfall, the lake and the natural beauty of the area surrounding what we now identify as the core of the Lula Lake Land Trust property.
The land was treated as no more than a garbage dump before Davenport purchased it parcel by parcel in the 1960s and began to clean it up with the help of his family. Slowly and surely, he restored it to its former glory. He toyed with the idea of selling it or developing it, but was never able to find a way to do so without taking away from the majesty of the waterfall and the deep blue lake.
“I remember cleaning out those caves with my father when I was younger,” his son, Bobby Davenport, says. “There was certainly different activity than what the Girl Scouts do out there nowadays. I cleaned out a lot of needles – the motorcycle gang that lived there must have had a lot of diabetics, that’s all I’ll say about that.”
Robert’s children signed an amended will to donate the land in 1994, and the family remains the largest donors to the Lula Lake Trust to this day, with 770 acres donated and another 440 acres protected under a conservation easement.