CLAYTON — Before Robert W. Kittle took a seat on the benchlike foundation that surrounds a new flagpole at Zenda Farms, he gave a little history lesson.

"This site used to be a two-story chicken coop," he said.

He looked across a sea of tall grass waving in the wind as it met the blacktop of Route 12E.

"Sissy Danforth was the spark plug behind a lot of this," he said. "The buildings were in bad shape. She got them painted; she just did some concrete things. It progressed from there. It will keep progressing. Just like this flagpole here."

The efforts Mr. Kittle spoke of revolve around preserving the heritage and acreage of the Zenda Farms complex — once a high-tech agriculture showplace of Jefferson County. The Thousand Islands Land Trust bought the barns and accompanying 130 acres of farmland in 1997, when Louise B. "Sissy" Danforth was TILT's executive director. Through purchase and donation, TILT acquired additional nearby fields and woods that had been part of the original Zenda Farms for a total of 389 acres.

Mrs. Danforth died in 2006 at age 66.

The Zenda Farm Preserve was a dairy, and later a beef farm. It was built in 1939 and operatedthrough the late 1970s. These days, its pastures and meadows are preserved as a north country treasure. Visitors range from grassland birds — that discover some of the highest quality habitat in the north country, according to TILT — to a growing contingent of community gardeners.

The community will have a chance to see the farm up close and find out about TILT — whose website says its mission is "to conserve the natural beauty, wildlife habitats and recreational opportunities of the 1000 Islands region" — when it hosts an open house at Zenda from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday to celebrate the group's 25th anniversary.

A Guy on a Bike rolled in and leaned his bike up against the Zenda building labeled Turkey House on the first day of summer. That building is next to the "creamery barn" that's used by the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, as a mainland laboratory for the school's Thousand Islands Biological Station on Governors Island.

Zenda hasn't given up its farming heritage altogether. The fields are still cut for hay by a local farmer, but only in August after the numerous grassland birds such as sandpipers, meadowlarks and bobolinks have finished raising their young.

With the aid of a cane, Mr. Kittle walked over and plucked a few stalks of grass and explained to his visitor about the different grass species. The fields, he said, can reveal a lot, if effort is taken to slow down and have a look.

"Maybe it would be nice to have a plot for identification, to educate," he said.

Mr. Kittle, 83, used to walk these fields and buildings as farm manager. He said it's important for people to realize that the site is more than just a big field and a collection of gray buildings on a hill.

In 1939, nearly a decade after he started visiting the Clayton area, Merle Youngs, a New York City industrialist, purchased the site from the estate of James K. Hackett. Mr. Hackett had been a noted actor whose most successful role was in the play "Prisoner of Zenda," for which the Clayton property was named.

Mr. Youngs, a millionaire, was one of the founders of the Clayton Yacht Club. The summer resident was president of Youngs Rubber Corp., which became the Youngs Drug Products Corp. Mr. Youngs developed the Trojan brand of condoms.

Mr. Kittle, a 1944 graduate of Clayton High School and a 1954 graduate of Cornell University, Ithaca, was working in Chicago as a researcher for Swift & Co. when he inquired about the Zenda Farms management position, which was open due to the death of manager Clinton Calhoun.

"I never had a real job interview," Mr. Kittle said. "I walked in his office and almost just as soon as I got in the door, a gentleman came in selling insurance. Mr. Youngs introduced me as his new farm manager."

It was a short-lived working relationship. Mr. Kittle began his job in March 1958, and Mr. Youngs died of a heart attack at Zenda that October at age 71.

"As farm manager, you pretty much ran the show," Mr. Kittle said. "Mr. Youngs said the only time I had to consult with him was when I bought machinery. That was his thing — he liked to buy machinery."

Mr. Kittle said Mr. Youngs had two hobbies: yachting and farming. It appears Mr. Youngs wasn't into farming for financial rewards.

"But he didn't want to lose too much money," Mr. Youngs said. "He told me, 'The only way we're going to come close to breaking even is if we go out and buy more land.'"

At one time, the farm consisted of about 800 acres, including land on nearby Carleton Island. Mr. Youngs bought the 1,350-acre island in the 1940s.

Mr. Kittle walked up the driveway and into the main barn building, where a cool breeze met him and his guest. During its dairy days, the building housed a herd of Guernseys. He pointed to the windows behind the abandoned stalls, where he said Mr. Youngs had "electric screens" installed that would kill insects. "That's why his bacteria counts were so low in his milk."

The farm's creamery contained the first automatic bottler in the area.

Mr. Youngs was a stickler for cleanliness in his dairy products, Mr. Kittle said, so much so that in the 1940s, it cost the farm $4 a quart to produce milk. "He told me it sold for about 10 cents a quart," Mr. Kittle said. "The quality of milk here was unmatched."

He added, "The bacteria counts got so low, it didn't even taste like milk. The bacteria is what gives milk some of its flavor."

The farm eventually switched to an all-beef operation. According to a 1947 Times story, 110 Guernseys were auctioned for $31,500 to farmers from as far away as Mississippi. A year later, the Times reported on the establishment of a herd of 450 white-faced Herefords on Carleton Island. Beefcattle were also kept on the mainland farm. A 1966 Times story said there were more than 800 animals at the two locations.

The farm employed 10 full-time workers and nearly two dozen workers in the summertime, Mr. Kittle said.

When Mr. Youngs died in 1958, his estate was split between his wife and his friend and business partner John C. MacFarlane of Englewood, N.J., who inherited the greatest portion of Zenda along with Youngs Rubber Co. Mr. MacFarlane took over operation of the farm.

Mr. Kittle said that Mr. MacFarlane's management style was even more hands-off than his predecessor's, and they never talked business — even when Mr. Kittle thought they should.

"I knew we were going to be short of hay one year," Mr. Kittle said. "I went all the way to New York City to meet him. We went on a boat ride instead. I ended up leaving not knowing anything more than when I got there."

Mr. Kittle became an executive at Youngs Rubber Co. in 1978, as the farm operation dwindled. He had some experience in the condom field based on his experience at Swift & Co.

"We gradually got out of the beef business (at Zenda) and we ended up pasturing cattle and finally just cutting hay," he said.

Mr. MacFarlane sold Carleton Island to the Patten Corp. Northeast, Stamford, Vt., in 1986. He sold Youngs Drug Product Corp. in 1987 to the Carter-Wallace Corp. of New York City. Mr. Kittle continued to work for the company but lived in Clayton.

"I just needed to be near an airport," he said.

In 1997 Mr. MacFarlane and his wife, Lois Jean, donated the farm buildings on Route 12E and 130 acres of the farmland at Zenda off Route 12E to TILT.

Mr. MacFarlane died in 2007 at the age of 82.

TILT uses the 130-acre farm, which is on the tax rolls, as a grassland preserve and as a functioning hay farm. The proceeds from the sale of hay are used to pay the property taxes.

Other types of farming are happening at the preserve, but on a small scale. This year, TILT received a Northern New York Community Foundation grant to maintain and expand its community garden at the Zenda Farm Preserve. The land trust and the Thousand Islands Young Leaders Organization, TILT's partner in the program, expanded the 6,000-square-foot garden to 7,250 square feet this summer. There are 21 families in the program this year, and gardeners come and go throughout the day.

TILT recently began work at the Zenda property on a 1.5 mile trail named after the MacFarlanes. There's a rustic bench on the trail, under a nice shade tree that's visible as you enter the property. It invites anyone to sit a while, take in the scenery and imagine the history behind it and the potential ahead.

A Guy on a Bike is an occasional column in which the rider introduces you to people and places along roads you might easily miss. If you have a suggested ride/column idea, contact cbrock@wdt.net, or write to Chris Brock at the Watertown Daily Times, 260 Washington St., Watertown, NY 13601

Octogenarian couple keeps on pedaling

Riding to Zenda Farms from Clayton, the Guy on a Bike happened upon Alvan A. and Patricia H. Taylor, who were heading back home from the village. Mr. Taylor is 86 and Mrs. Taylor is 82. This column offered a profile two years ago on the pair and their daily bike rides — even in winter — of nearly 20 years from their Taylor Lane home, about 4 miles from Clayton.

Mrs. Taylor said as she pedaled down Route 12E that she and her husband alternate these days between bike riding one day and going to a Clayton gym the other. The headwinds are becoming too strong for the couple, she said, and they like the variety the gym provides.

The Taylors are still pushing for the widening of Route 12E from Bartlett Point Road just before Clayton to at least Sand Bay Road (County Route 9) to make it more bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly. But they know that drive may be tougher than any headwind, considering the state's budget situation.

"In God's time," Mr. Taylor said of the project, as he rolled down the road.