Woodchuck Lodge, located at 1633 Burroughs Memorial Road in Roxbury, New York, is a registered National  Historic Landmark. From 1910 to 1921, it was the summer home of John Burroughs, America’s most prominent and adored naturalist-essayist. The Lodge was built in the early 1860s by Burroughs’ older brother Curtis on Burroughs homestead land where the naturalist was born and raised. The rustic farmhouse has been in the Burroughs family since its construction, except for the years 1922-1947 when Burroughs’ close friends, Henry and Clara Ford, owned it. John Burroughs wrote several essays during summer sojourns at Woodchuck Lodge in the last years of his life, and there he also entertained luminaries such as Harvey Firestone, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford.

After Henry Ford’s death, the Ford family sold Woodchuck Lodge back to the Burroughs family. In the 1970s, John E. Lutz, great-grand nephew of John Burroughs, purchased the place from E. Wilson Burroughs. John and his wife Una soon after founded Woodchuck Lodge, Inc with the mission of promoting Burroughs’s legacy, donating the property to it in 1973. John served as president of the organization until 2000–developing educational programs, raising funding, and overseeing historic preservation work on the house–when he passed on leadership to the present generation.

Learn more about John Burroughs