An American Hero: Walter Cottle Lester, 88, Who Spurned a Fortune in Donating Land, Dies

Yes, I think he was a hero.

Walter Cottle Lester could have been another Silicon Valley millionaire. He was in the right place at the right time with something highly marketable. Potential investors swarmed. How much would it take, they asked — $100 million? $500 million?

It turned out that Mr. Lester had a different kind of investment in mind.

He owned 300 acres on the southern side of San Jose, one of the last large expanses of farmland in a dense and very expensive real estate market. Instead of selling to a developer who would build yet another housing subdivision for high-tech workers, Mr. Lester held out for a low-tech dream: He wanted the land to stay the way it was, preserved as farmland and open space, with arching old oaks and broad views of the surrounding mountains, not just strip malls.

On Feb. 1, the day after Mr. Lester died at age 88 in San Jose, that vision began coming to fruition: The first phase of Martial Cottle Park, named for Mr. Lester’s grandfather and long in the planning, opened to the public in the form of a four-mile trail on the property.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/10/us/walter-cottle-lester-preservationist-dies-at-88.html