Existing Conditions

The project site (~221 acres) including Flynt Park and Keep Homestead varies in condition, use, and character. Most of the western acreage is not frequently used and remains quite remote. The eastern half, which connects to bordering roads of Park Road and Ely Road, contains the actively used zones.

f lyn T P ar K

A driveway starts at Park Rd. and continues in between two soccer fields set in front of the steep, forested, easterly slope of Mt. Ella. Midway up the driveway a gravel parking lot, bleachers, a kiosk, and a tee box face north towards the tree-line. This serves as the starting point to Mountainside Disc Golf, an 18-hole, 28-acre, wooded course that guides players through the northern part of the property and up to the peak of Mt. Ella at around 825 feet. Farther south along the driveway, a ball field is set in the foreground with a view of the Chicopee Brook valley. Upslope, a carriage road called “Chestnut Avenue” runs parallel to the driveway. A remnant of the road historically used by Flynt Park goers to traverse the park, picnic, and be entertained by a zoo that ran along the side of it. At the end of the driveway, a third ball field dominates the view to the south as the concrete widens to a larger parking lot. Adjacent to the parking lot sits a children's playground with a view of the northern ballfields. To the west, about equal size, is a parking lot with a compacted sand, and gravel surface, used as overflow parking and a utility space for the Parks and Recreation crew. No running water is available at Flynt Park but there are two portable toilets. Cutting through the forested areas are disc golf trails, old carriage trails, and unmarked trails. Apart from disc golf hole numbers and tee boxes, the trails do not have consistent markings. Near the peak of Mt. Ella there is a cleared area where a picnic bench and a fire pit look out to the east.

K ee P h o M es T ead M useu M

The colonial home of the Keep Family was originally built in the mid-1700s. Willed to the Town of Monson with the stipulation of it becoming a Museum for the collection of buttons and family artifacts, this house now home to the Keep Family Homestead Museum; an organization which through the museum, events and programming, continues the legacy of the last owner, Myra Moulton. Apart from the house, this property is used and valued for a variety of different reasons. On three sides of the house, a sloping lawn hosts some seating areas and art sculptures. To the south, a barn there are three raised beds at a height designed for wheelchair use, abut a parking lot. To the south of the lot is a community garden hosting a dozen or so plots. To the south of the gardens sit three hayfields maintained by the last dairy farming family in town. To the west of the fields and into the forest lies a network of trails more intentionally designed than those at Flynt Park, but sporadically managed. An old quarry that is now a certified vernal pool, a pond, and gentle forested topography are the features and destinations that make the landscape at this property an engaging place to be.