Grumpy Old Men star Walter Matthau and his wife gave a Roxbury hayfield to a land trust in 1997; nearly 30 years later, the Connecticut preserve still keeps its views open

Most of Walter Matthau’s acting career was devoted to creating the image of a grumpy old man in his numerous films together with Jack Lemmon, most notably in “Grumpy Old Men.” But in a quiet little town of Roxbury, Connecticut, in Litchfield County, he made a rather inconspicuous decision that was not related to anything funny at all. He gave away one of his hayfields to a local land trust to preserve it from development forever. It is an example of how an ordinary donation of a property can withstand the test of time for many decades.The 1997 donation to the Roxbury Land TrustThe piece of land was donated to the Roxbury Land Trust by Matthau and his wife Carole in 1997, based on a description of the property from the land trust itself, which states that the piece of land is an active hayfield with open scenic views of the east side, as per the official site of the organization at Matthau Preserve. The land trust's own materials give slightly different acreage figures for the property: the Matthau Preserve page lists it at 32 acres, while the trust's historical timeline records the 1997 donation as a 34-acre preserve. In either case, the land is one of the medium-sized preserves owned by the trust.In fact, Roxbury has always been known to attract writers, actors and artists in search of isolation close to New York City and Matthau was among several such distinguished inhabitants who contributed their lands to this conservation effort. William and Rose Styron added their 22 acres of land to the trust in the same year, thus creating the Styron Preserve in the neighborhood of the Matthau land, an act that has been recorded in the trust's organizational history. The Styron Preserve, together with the 27-acre Widmark Preserve and a small connecting parcel, forms part of a chain of protected land that stretches all the way to the 467-acre Good Hill Farm Preserve, a corridor totaling roughly 800 acres in all.Why an active hayfield matters more than an abandoned field Contrary to the preserve’s wild growth pattern, the Matthau Preserve remains a hayfield in full operation. That is exactly the purpose for which the New England land trusts seek to keep donated farmland in active agricultural use rather than allowing it to return to forest, because mowing hayfields not only keeps the rural landscape viewable through its open vistas, but also sustains low-level agriculture needed for local hay production. It is that exact combination that allows the preserve to maintain its view to the east after almost three decades since its donation, instead of letting it be covered with trees that will naturally reclaim uncultivated land.The Roxbury Land Trust was established in 1970 and currently manages more than 30 preserves totaling roughly 4,000 acres, interconnected through a series of hiking trails. Though the Matthau Preserve takes up only a tiny part of the land managed by the trust, its location within the group of several more celebrity-donated preserves along Tophet Road shows how much the land trust depends on donations.A career built on comic timing and a different kind of legacyMatthau’s success was solely dependent on his performance in front of a camera. Born in New York City on October 1, 1920, Matthau built his entire career around his signature gravelly voice and hangdog demeanor, states his Encyclopædia Britannica biography. He received an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role in “The Fortune Cookie” at the 39th Academy Awards ceremony in 1967 for movies that were released in 1966. He passed away on July 1, 2000, in Santa Monica, California, aged 79, spending his latter years playing mostly comedy parts.The preserve's enduring open views and working hayfield are thanks to the agreement Matthau made back in 1997, rather than to anything he did in a studio. In general, once the land has been passed over to a nonprofit trust whose goal is conservation, the deed is always accompanied by some sort of restriction, meaning that neither the trust nor any other owner in the future will be able to sell the land to developers. And the history of the Roxbury Land Trust proves it time and again.A small gift with a long shelf lifeThe donation’s significance is not its size. It is small in comparison to other donations, such as the 467-acre Good Hill Farm Preserve and the 360-acre Mine Hill Preserve. What is significant about the Matthau donation is just how little maintenance it needs to provide its benefit continuously. Once the property is donated, the eastern views and hayfield nature that made it worthy of being donated will continue with minimal maintenance, no action from Matthau's family and no fear of the land being subdivided into housing parcels.Almost three decades since a comedic actor famous for bickering with his friends throughout his twilight years in movies made an unspectacular decision regarding a farm in Connecticut, that decision is working perfectly fine in providing exactly what it was meant to provide: the hayfield gets mowed and the views remain open.Catch the latest World News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.