Meredith Selectmen Pressed To Take Action To Save Camp Menotomy From Development

By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org

MEREDITH – While a Massachusetts judge has paved the way for a summer girls camp on Lake Winnipesaukee to be sold to a developer, town officials were asked Monday by more than 50 residents to get the state to intervene in an appeal to keep Camp Menotomy the 94 acres of undeveloped shorefront property.

The board took no immediate action but each member voiced support for the position of its residents. This is despite a purchase and sales agreement for $18 million to develop it into seven lots with 28 acres of conservation land which could go on to the town’s tax rolls, which could help reduce taxes but also a possible need for services.

Jeanie Forrester, a board member, wrote an op-ed piece noting the Sept. 2 decision by a Massachusetts probate court judge to allow for development does not determine the fate of this undeveloped shoreland. She noted the ruling by Judge Carla Salvucci’s ruling in Middlesex, Mass. Probate Court is now being appealed.

She contends a deed in New Hampshire holds that the land can only be sold if no other group is willing to run the property as a camp, and that that desire exists with two potential nonprofit camps interested, including one for Gold Star families.

Michael Garrity, spokesman for the New Hampshire Department of Justice, said Tuesday: “We are actively reviewing the matter. We have no new public updates to provide at this time.”

It’s not just the 4,500 feet of undeveloped shoreline to save but the very culture and character of the state and the town, said Executive Councilor Joe Kenney, R-Wakefield, who made a presentation at the regular selectmen’s meeting at the Meredith Community Center.

Too few tracts of land are left that are not developed, he said.

“I am a New Hampshire guy who wants to see a little bit of New Hampshire stay the way it should stay and protect our natural resources, protect our camp environment, protect our ability to go to the White Mountains to go hiking, to protect our water quality, to make sure that we have the natural resources we have that bring people outside of the state here… We cannot short change our future generations by not providing an outlet called ‘a camping experience in New Hampshire,” said Kenney, who represents Meredith.

There are in fact, two camps interested in operating on the land by lease.

Eric Carlson, a proposed camp operator, and former Menotomy camper Jessie Trowbridge are named appellants in the Massachusetts case. At the meeting Trowbridge spoke.

She said she feels compelled to work to save the camp experience for others and brought her own family there for family camp before it closed after COVID-19. She said her kids are longing to go back to “camp.”

“During my time at Menotomy I learned to build a one match fire, I hiked in the White Mountains, I learned rock climbing and how to predict the weather by clouds. We were taught to reduce food waste, to take on our share of daily chores, to offer kindness to others and to cherish traditions,” she said.

“The magic that is possible at Camp Menotomy and in your community is threatened. The original trustees of Camp Menotomy wanted to protect this land to be a place that was forever special,” she said. “If the trust is upheld it remains a camp and a sanctuary for those who need it and it could still be that place for generations to come.”

Bob Higley of Bear Island in Meredith said he thinks it is important for the town to weigh in on this property remaining as a camp.
He said he took a look at the 2025 community plan and its vision statement and noted it said that the town should be committed to elevating stewardship of the environment through the protection of natural resources and another, continued support of outdoor, recreational, cultural and civic opportunities which is two of the four cornerstones.

He said Meredith Neck is singled out in the plan as a resource protection area.

A member of the Meredith Neck and Islands Alliance board, Higley called protecting the camp property “critical” to that vision and plan.

A map of the location at 386 Meredith Neck Road is here https://www.bing.com/maps/search?name=Camp+Menotomy&mepi=0%7E%7EEmbedded%7ELargeMapLink&FORM=MPSRPL&style=r&ss=id.ypid%3AYN1665FB2E440499EC&q=Camp+Menotomy&ppois=43.64392852783203_-71.42037200927734_Camp+Menotomy&cp=43.643929%7E-71.420372&lvl=15

Rachel Hampe, a civil trial attorney and among others representing the appellants in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, said the pending lawsuit and pending investigation by the Attorney General’s office is whether the property should be used as a camp as the creators of the trust had expressly intended.

“The record, including publicly available information, shows that there is no reason for the charitable purpose of the trust to be forfeited,” she said. Hampe noted that there are several organizations that have come forward to continue to use the property as a camp, including one to use it as a nonprofit camp for girls at no cost to the trust.

During its early years the property was a boy’s camp and then in the late 1930s it was acquired by the Girls’ Scouts of Arlington, Mass.

In 1961, Hampe said, in response to the “Green Umbrella Movement” the property was placed in trust to protect it from a national consolidation of the Girl Scouts.

Some asked if the land could be zoned differently but were told that would be difficult and likely seen as spot zoning.
Others said the correct decision is simply in the deed which needs to be enforced.

The 1960s deed, which they believe restricts the sale, was filed in Belknap County, New Hampshire. A copy of the deed is here https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/dde1004c-a045-4500-ac21-bfdbfaee56c9/downloads/15775cda-218a-4c33-854d-f26701cbae4b/1961%20Camp%20Menotomy%20Deed.pdf?ver=1792892013812

Kenney noted that at a recent Executive Council meeting when he was pressing John Formella for an update on the matter, Gov. Kelly Ayotte told everyone she was once a camper at Camp Menotomy.

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