Buyers Head Off Walden Woods Condo Developer

Rock star Don Henley and a group striving to keep historic Walden Woods from developers announced Monday the purchase of a 25-acre tract in the forest that inspired 19th-Century naturalist Henry David Thoreau.

The Walden Woods Project, co-chaired by Henley, Michael Kennedy and former Sen. Paul Tsongas, said it also obtained a conservation restriction on 25 abutting acres for $3.55 million.

They are still looking to buy or gain conservation rights for another parcel 700 yards from Thoreau’s one-room cabin on Walden Pond, immortalized in his work “Walden,” which laid the philosophical foundation for the U.S. environmental movement.

The Walden “Victory Picnic” was attended by singers Bonnie Raitt, Arlo Guthrie and John Hall, the band Boston, Rep. Chester G. Atkins (D-Mass.), executives from Hearst Magazines and Kennedy, son of the late Robert F. Kennedy.

A Hearst magazine, Countryside, gave the project a $100,000 grant to pay the first installment on the mortgage, WWP director Kathi Anderson said.

The land, owned by developer Philip DeNormandie of Lincoln, Mass., was earmarked for a development of 139 condominiums.