GREAT VALLEY — A retired businessman from Great Valley has completed the cleanup at the old Great Valley Youth Camp and turned the facility over to town for a recreation and multi-purpose area.
Travis Baugh, who lives about a mile away off Mutton Hollow Road, was concerned when the state announced plans to sell the surplus property after the youth camp closed in 2010. Not knowing what the property would be used for, he decided to purchase it himself.
“Now we’ve got to figure out what to do with it,” Baugh said Tuesday morning as town officials gathered at the site that has been cleared of most buildings due to asbestos.
Great Valley Supervisor Dan Brown said a storage building, a pavilion and a baseball backstop are the only structures standing at the 43-acre site. There’s also a water tower, power and a new septic system.
Nearby is the 10,000-acre McCarty Hill State Forest, the Finger Lakes Trail, Rock City, a snowmobile trail, mountain bike trail and cross country ski trails.
Baugh, who plans to help the town find grants to help develop the area, said a formal dedication would be held in the spring. A monument to those who originally used the facility — delinquent youth and the staff who taught and watched over them — will be established.
The area will be named the Baugh Family Public Park, Brown said.
Brown said a flagpole from the youth camp will be put up at the site and a time capsule buried in the 1980s will also be dug up in the spring. He said some of the camp’s former residents have expressed an interest in attending.
Brown said the area could even be used for a music festival — a Great Valley Volunteer Fire Department fundraiser, which is finding it increasingly difficult to continue sponsoring.
“The closest house is a mile away,” he said. “It wouldn’t disturb anyone. And there’s plenty of property.”
Another idea that recently surfaced was a fishing pond for area youth. It could also be used as a hub for horseback riding.
As for a snowmobile staging area, there is plenty of room to park vehicles towing snowmobile trailers. Brown said the town snowplows turn around at the driveway to the property, but could easily drop the plow while driving in and out of the area.
There are two areas with concrete floors exposed: the former classrooms and the gymnasium that also had to be torn down due to asbestos. Brown said uses could be found for those areas. The concrete floor beneath the wood gym floor already has basketball lines drawn on it. “All we need is a couple of baskets,” Brown said.
“We’re looking for ideas,” Baugh said. Anyone with an idea of what the town can do with the property can send it to Baugh at travis@northwoodllc.
