Soapstone Easement

Type of Project: Conservation Easement

For nearly 20 years, the nonprofit literary organization Soapstone provided residencies for some 375 women writers at a hand-crafted cabin perched above Soapstone Creek, a tributary of the North Fork Nehalem River. Board members and residents ranged from names you know—Ursula Le Guin, Cheryl Strayed—to lesser known but accomplished writers, for whom a residency at Soapstone was a rare opportunity to focus undisturbed on their writing for a week or more.

In 2010 the board of directors decided to move Soapstone in a different direction. They sold the building and 22 acres of forest that surrounded in fall 2013—but with a conservation easement with NCLC in place, ensuring that regardless who owns the land, it will continue to be stewarded with the same thought and care it had under Soapstone’s ownership.