Duke Farms is an estate that was established by James Buchanan Duke, an American entrepreneur who founded Duke Power and the American Tobacco Company. It is located in Hillsborough, New Jersey.
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Starting in 1893, "Buck" Duke started to buy land next to the Raritan River in rural New Jersey. His vision was to create a farm similar to those in North Carolina where he had grown up. He engaged a number of architects and engineers to fulfill his dream including Buckenham & Miller, James Greenleaf and Elizabeth Biddle Shipman. Eventually he had assembled about 2,700 acres (11 km²) of farm and wood lands that contained 45 buildings, 9 lakes, 18 miles of roads and 1.5 miles of stone walls.[1]
Duke died in 1925, and his 12-year old daughter, Doris Duke, gained control of the property after suing her mother.[2] She restored it and moved in at the age of fifteen.[2] She was very invested in the property and made it her main residence. She incorporated innovative ecological farming methods she learned from Louis Bromfield's Malabar Farm. Starting in 1958 she created and designed over a five year period a unique botanical display in the Horace Trumbauer conservatory and greenhouses known as Duke Gardens.[3] Duke Gardens opened to the public in 1964. Doris Duke died in 1992.
Duke Farms is owned by the Duke Farms Foundation (DFF) that was established in 1998 to manage the estate. The Foundation, in turn, is part of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. The DFF states its mission " to be a model of environmental stewardship in the 21st Century and inspire visitors to become informed stewards of the land."[4] In a controversial move, in 2008, the DFF closed Duke Gardens demolishing the indoor display gardens that had been created by Doris Duke.[3] The conservatory and greenhouses known as the Orchid Range will be updated and become more energy-efficient. The DFF plans to create new indoor and outdoor display gardens that are eco-friendly, use native plants, and are wheelchair accessible. In the process of rehabilitation numerous invasive foreign plants have been identified including Norwegian maple and Asian Ailanthus and are removed and replaced by native species. The property has a number of notable trees, namely four of the ten oldest trees of New Jersey.[5] and two champion trees, a Great Oak and an Amur Cork Tree.[6]
Currently, very little is accessible to the public: On weekends visitors can walk on an about 2 mile-long nature walk. The remainder of the property is closed and Duke's mansion is empty and uninhabited. It has been indicated that more of the property may be open to visitors by Earth Day, 2011.[7]