SCARBOROUGH – Margery and Leroy Fancy moved their family to Ash Swamp Road in the summer of 1954.
She had grown up on a farm on Payne Road, and he was a city boy who learned fast. They ran a “gentleman’s farm” on their property, with large gardens, some cows, and acres of hayfields around the 200-year-old farmhouse.
It has been about a decade since the property was last farmed, but it may be farmed again in the near future under an arrangement involving Margery Fancy and her family, the town and the Maine Farmland Trust.
The town has agreed to pay Margery Fancy $127,000 for the development rights to the land so an agricultural easement can be established. That means the 13-acre property will be valued at $138,000 – far more affordable for a potential buyer than the farm's $265,000 appraised value with development rights.
The Maine Farmland Trust facilitates such deals, holds the easements and monitors the properties.
Margery Fancy, now 93, lived on the property until she moved into a nursing home late last year, more than three decades after the death of her husband. Neither her son, John Fancy of Appleton, nor her daughter, Joan Sandidge of Wayne, wanted to see the land developed.
“It’s a good farming spot. It made sense to try to preserve it as a useful farm,” John Fancy said.
Click for the rest of the story by Ann S. Kim in the Portland Press Herald.
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