Lusscroft Fast Facts

  • Lusscroft encompasses 577.86 acres in Wantage and Montague Townships, Sussex County, New Jersey. It lies along County Route 519 and Neilson Road, adjacent to High Point State Park and Stokes State Forest.
  • Adjacent to Lusscroft, Rutan Hill is geologically significant as one of only two sites in New Jersey with nepheline syenite, a very rare type of igneous rock. Lusscroft is the only place in New Jersey to see an extinct volcano (440 million years old).
  • Built as a model dairy farm between 1914 and 1930 and serving as the North Jersey Dairy Branch of the State Agricultural Experiment Station between 1931 and 1970, Lusscroft uniquely preserves two fundamental states in the revolutionary advance of scientific agriculture.
  • Located at the headwaters of the West Branch of Papakating Creek, Lusscroft falls within two Natural Heritage Priority Sites: the Wallkill River Macrosite (B4), which contains globally rare and endangered animal species; and the Papakating Creek Natural Heritage Site (B3), which contains globally rare and endangered turtles, threatened animals and endangered plant species.
  • Lusscroft presents a unique opportunity to protect and enhance the habitat for grassland-dependent bird species in the Great Limestone Valley, which are declining regionally as well as nationally.