Did you stop over at Oak Point on Saturday?

It was the official opening day for the latest preserve to come under the wing of the Boothbay Region Land Trust. If you were there, you would have seen a stunning 32-acre parcel that has been a saltwater farm since the late 1600s.

Standing at the edge of the parking lot, located off Samoset Road, you would have enjoyed a broad meadow sweeping down to the Townsend Gut and Hodgdon Cove.

You would have seen walking trails snaking along the shore, through the woods past ancient apple trees. You would have seen a farmhouse built in the 1700s transformed into a headquarters.

More about the headquarters later.

Most of all, you would have seen families and dozens of children, some still strapped in strollers, enjoying the warm summer sun and gentle breezes. Some of them were racing and chasing around as part of a woodsy version of an Easter egg hunt. In this version, they sought brightly colored pine cones instead of decorated chicken fruit. Other children and their parents slipped down to the shore to poke under rocks. Not one of them was sitting in a dark room staring at a video monitor or TV set.

Come winter, the property will sport trails for cross-country skiing, snow sledding, and other cold weather activities.

Think about this for a moment. On Saturday, a group of kids ran around one of the most beautiful pieces of shorefront property in the Great State of Maine. No one said a cross word, and there was no sign around proclaiming: “Private Property, Keep Out.”

John Welsh, whose family has owned a beautiful farm on nearby Dover Road for generations, explained that is the reason that Oak Point is important for us all.

He asked the crowd if they have seen a photo and story in a recent edition of the Portland Press Herald. It was a photo showing a fence blocking access to a traditional Sabbathday Lake swimming beach in New Gloucester. That photo represents the importance of Oak Point and our land trust, he said. It provides public access to one of the beauties of nature.

He also mentioned that the land trust is kicking off a $3 million fundraising campaign to acquire the land and transform the farmhouse into a headquarters/office. Donors have already donated $2 million, and he encouraged others to pitch in.

Louise Bowditch, the new chair of the Bigelow Lab Board of Directors, was an early supporter of the Oak Point preserve. In an interview, she reinforced Welch’s words. “It is all about public access. That is what is important,” she said.

For Bill Hamblen, the chair of the Boothbay Harbor Planning Board, and an Oak Point neighbor, the latest BRLT acquisition is a home run for a different reason. He described the 32-acre property as a developer’s dream saying it would have been a prime target for subdivision into upwards of a half dozen large building lots. In his mind, a developer’s dream project would have been a nightmare for neighbors used to quiet meadows and peaceful forests.

While the Boothbay Region Land Trust is a conservation organization, it is focused on more than just preserving land and trees.

Jack Fulmer, a retired surgeon, and active East Boothbay homeowner is president of the BRLT. He said one of the trust’s goals is the conservation of energy. That is why they chose to heat and cool the headquarters with an unconventional combined heating and cooling plant.

It is a geothermal heat pump system, installed by Damariscotta’s Mid-Coast Energy Systems. Instead of drilling into the earth to use the constant underground temperature as a thermal source, they used the farm pond.

“We coiled seven 300-foot-long lengths of one-inch plastic pipe and affixed them to snow fencing to build a mat,” said Bill Morgner, Mid-Coast’s president. That mat was filled with fluid and sunk to the bottom of the pond. There, 10 feet under the surface, the fluid absorbs thermal energy that is then piped to the heat pump system.

The last step for the heating plant will see solar panels installed on the roof to generate the electricity needed to run the heat pump, compressors, fans and other office equipment.

While the old farmhouse came with a working oil-fired boiler furnace, it will be sidelined, but not removed, just in case they ever need a backup.

When finished, Fulmer says the project will have a neutral carbon footprint in addition to providing universal public access to both the building and the hiking trails.

The farmhouse/headquarters reconstruction project has a budget of $589,000 with $250,000 earmarked for the heating and cooling system. A generous donor wrote a check for the heating/cooling plant, Fulmer said.