Spring 2015 Notes from the Road: The Preserve at Boulder Hills
An excerpt from Notes from the Road: The Preserve at Boulder Hills . The view from the top is always stunning, especially so when surrounded by colorful fall foliage. I was bird hunting at The Preserve at Boulder Hills in Rhode Island and was quite unused to such an elevation in what typically is a flat, ocean state. Lower in the elevation was a guide working dogs through a patch of broomstraw. A beeper sounded and the pointer was locked up.
Better get a move on, I thought, and then I stopped. Let them go ahead, there will be more points, but this view needed an extra glance. There were rolling hills, beautifully colored leaves and a smell of saltwater that was incredible. And all of this in Little Rhody.
I’ve always loved Rhode Island and Rhode Islanders. The state has always been quietly and historically relevant even though Roger Williams carved out the new territory as a disgruntled ex-pat from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The smallest state was an industrial powerhouse beginning in the mid-1660s, with gristmills grinding grain. Residents created Johnnycakes, those delicious, flat cakes made from ground corn known in other regions as Shawnee or hoecakes.
Newport ushered in the Great Gatsby era with “cottages” built by the Vanderbilts, Oelrichs and Astors, and it was here that Atlanta’s Ted Turner quipped after winning the 1977 America’s Cup, “If I only had a little humility, I’d be perfect.” And now, in the towns of Richmond and Wyoming, which are a chip shot away from the Connecticut border, is a new club that celebrates the sporting life, the kind that has been integral in the state for over a century.
In a way, The Preserve at Boulder Hills is the sum of the work of serial entrepreneur and developer Paul Mihailides. Many wing shooters are already familiar with Mihailides who recently took total ownership of Famars, and his vision for The Preserve began in the early 1990s. The lifelong sportsman fell in love with a several hundred-acre parcel of land that stood in stark contrast to the land typical of southern New England.
