Livingston Place

Livingston Place. . , Livingston Place, a former Antebellum cotton plantation, is located in the heart of the Red Hills, a distinct American landscape of large wild quail hunting preserves rich in natural and cultural resources. From 1926 to 1994, this land was the winter estate of the Livingston family of New York, who called it Dixie Plantation. Gerald Moncrieffe Livingston, an investment broker and governor of the New York Stock Exchange, and his wife Eleanor Hoffman Rodewald were avid hunters. They amassed more than 18,000 acres spanning the Florida-Georgia border. In 1936, architect John Russell Pope designed a three-story Neo-Classical Revival brick mansion overlooking Lake Windom. Pope’s prominent works include landmarks such as the Jefferson Memorial and the National Gallery of Art. The mansion at Livingston Place was his only construction in Florida. Gerald Livingston was also a president of the prestigious Continental Field Trial Club, begun in 1895. This land has served as a venue for the Continental Field Trial since 1937, showcasing competition among the nation’s top bird dogs and their handlers. Through their stewardship, the Livingstons turned this site into one of the finest wild quail hunting estates in the South. , Black tenant farmers and sharecroppers played a critical role in the origin and success of Red Hills hunting preserves through the mid-20th century. Their small-scale subsistence patch farming and traditional controlled burning practices supported abundant game, especially bobwhite quail. Other skilled laborers included dog handlers, horse trainers, and house and grounds workers. At its peak in 1940, during the Jim Crow era, 400 Black workers and their families lived in a self-contained community. They maintained homes, churches, and schools. In 1994, the youngest Livingston daughter established the Geraldine C. M. Livingston Foundation to support the use of the 9,125-acre Florida half of the land for dog field trials and as a wildlife refuge. In 1998, the foundation permanently protected the property with a conservation easement. In 2013, the foundation gave the land to Tall Timbers, a non-profit research and land conservation organization. Tall Timbers expanded wildlife research and restored the historic main house in 2021. Livingston Place continues to be a working landscape that supports wild bobwhite quail habitat, built on decades of science-driven land management practices and the use of prescribed fire. , A Florida Heritage Site