STERLING, Va. (June 8, 2026)
JK Land Holdings (JKLH) has purchased the 222-acre O’Connor Estate/Dry Hollow Farm, part of which is in the Town of Leesburg and the remaining in the county. JKLH bought the land to help protect the historic, scenic property—much of which abuts Morven Park—from developers. Another 431 acres are also being protected with the purchase of three additional western Loudoun farms.
“With deep roots, the O’Connor family and their land are part of the fabric that makes our county unique. We bought their remaining land and the other farms with the intent of putting these properties in conservation easement to help preserve the beauty, history and environment of Loudoun County,” explained JKLH CEO Chuck Kuhn. “We will start the easement process once the county’s Prime Ag zoning rules get amended to ensure that this land remains protected forever.”
Dry Hollow Farm was owned by Nancy Harrison O’Connor, who passed in 2011. She was a historian and author, and a Loudoun founding family member. She was a direct descendant of Richard Henry Lee, who presented the Declaration of Independence to the Continental Congress. The O’Connor Estate includes four distinct parcels of land that are adjacent to Balls Bluff Battlefield Park as well as Morven Park and Ida Lee Park.
The other Loudoun properties recently purchased include:
- The 265-acre Snickersville Farm in Purcellville, characterized by pastureland, woods, waterfront along the North Fork Beaverdam Creek, and a 1770 farmhouse
- The 88-acre Fairview Farm on Snickersville Turnpike in Middleburg
- The 78-acre Brown Farm in Round Hill.
Conservation easements are an innovative strategy for protecting land, water, plants, and animals as well as preserving cultural and historic sites. They are a private legal agreement between a landowner and a land trust that permanently protects land and its conservation values and remains with the property regardless of whether the land gets sold. The model helps ensure that landowners who want to preserve no matter what their land size land can afford to do so.
Prior to 2024, conservation easements played an important role in preserving Loudoun County’s historic, farming and natural features for future generations protecting 75,000 acres in the county. In 2023, Loudoun County implemented policy changes through the Prime Soils and Mountain Overlay modifications to the zoning ordinance, while offering limited temporary protection of certain areas in theory to protect farming. As anticipated, the rules have had the opposite effect: devaluing the land and stopping conservation easement. With the new zoning laws in effect, farming is virtually unchanged while land being conserved dropped by two-thirds.
Owned by Chuck and Stacy Kuhn, JKLH has already conserved more than 22,000 acres of land—more than a third in Loudoun County–including: 128-acre Loudoun riverfront property that was donated to NOVA Parks; 135-acre Westpark golf course in Leesburg that is being transformed into a park; 87-acre JK Black Oak Wildlife Sanctuary; 150-acres in Purcellville used to start the JK Community Farm, a charitable effort that alleviates hunger by growing chemical free crops and livestock and donating them to local foodbanks; and 42 acres in St. Louis, one of Loudoun’s first African American townships, to protect it from development. The Kuhns and their companies have won numerous awards, including being recognized by the Washington Business Journal as a Top Corporate Philanthropist and the Old Dominion Land Conservancy for their conservation efforts.