Our ride for the day. Avanti II 1976. Rich also has 3 Studebakers under re-construction: (1953 Champion Coupe, 1955 President speedster, 1963 studebaker Avanti one of 28 black, supercharged ever made.
Shelburne Farms.
By 1850’s Shelburne town had over 1,000 residents and 17,000 sheep on the land. As settlers moved west the railroads driving this shift made the Vanderbilt family fortune.
Eliza Webb was the daughter of William H. Vanderbilt, one of the world’s wealthiest men when he died in 1885. Her inheritance enabled her and her husband, William Seward Webb to establish a grand agricultural estate in Shelburne consolidating over 33 farms (nearly 4,000 acres) when the Webbs arrived in 1886.
After Lila’s death in 1936 the estate’s complex, labor-intensive operations became increasingly unsupportable and were scaled back. Under financial pressures and the realities of inheritances, separate parcels were bequeathed, sold, or transferred to others. The core property remained intact, and family members remained committed to farming. The immense buildings, however, required investments beyond the means of later generations. Many fell into disrepair.
In 1976, Derick Webb sold 104 acres to the Nature Conservancy, and later gifted an additional 103 acres.
1984, Derick bequeathed 1,400 acres of the land and assets of Shelburne Farms not to his family, but to the educational nonprofit set up by his children.
