liz and jock whitney divorced in june 1940 but she retained the estate and lived there for almost six decades until her death in 1988. during her latter years, the elderly liz whitney allowed the property to become run down but in 1989 the now property was bought by roy l. ash and his wife, lila who saved it from developers who wanted to tear down the buildings and replace them with a multi-home housing complex. mr. and mrs. ash undertook a major restoration of the property and created a large cow-calf operation, raising upward of 300 angus and angus-cross cows. they earned wide recognition and received major awards for implementing environmental conservation methods that protected the water on the land through hardened low-water crossings and the creation of acres of riparian buffers that also provided habitat for wildlife.