This historic nominee for Florida's Special Places comes from Audubon's Chrisite Anderberg in Hernando County. She nominates the beautiful Chinsegut Hill. Enjoy:

This is Chinsegut Hill, the manor house is on 114 acres, in a high priority greenway, is on the national historic register, is a Florida Heritage site.

It is the core of thousands of acres in Hernando/Citrus counties of land owned and managed by US Department of Agriculture, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Department of Forestry, and Florida Audubon's Ahhochee Hill. Historically, over 2,000 acres were owned by the Robins family. Lisa von Borowsky worked for them from 1924 until Mr Robins died in 1954. Mr. Robins family owned Ahhochee Hill and gave it to Lisa. In 1932 the Robins donated over 2000 acres to the US government, in part for a wildlife refuge.

Over the years the house and surrounding land became owned by the State and was leased to the USF as a conference center. Two years ago, USF gave notice to DEP that they no longer wanted to manage the property. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) first gave notice that the property was available to lease two years ago. July 1, DEP gave a second notice that expires this week. If no interest is shown in the property, DEP could put it up for private sale, which would remove it from public use and enjoyment.

The Friends of Chinsegut Hill have submitted a letter of interest to DEP and are exploring partnerships and funding sources to Save the Hill!