OXFORD - A 555-acre tract in Oxford has been saved from future development under an agreement reached between the landowner and the New England Forestry Foundation in Massachusetts.

"I got older and I wanted it to be in safe hands," said the 83-year-old landowner, Patricia Page, in a telephone interview from her son's home in Lincoln, Mass., where she is staying.

The property, which will be known as the Page Family Community Forest, was sold to the nonprofit group for $55,000. It is situated on the west side of Marshall Pond and will be open to the public.

"It's a magical place," said Page, who lives in Poland. "It's so remote only a few people know about it."

The property is one of 13 forest sites maintained by the NEFF in Maine. Others include the 150-acre True Farm Living Forest in Mechanic Falls and the 120-acre Keene-Whitman Memorial Forest in Turner/Hebron. The organization also manages forests in the five other New England states.

In 2006, Page donated a permanent conservation easement on the land to the Western Foothills Land Trust protecting it from development while allowing the active forestry to occur. In December, the family conveyed ownership of the property to NEFF, which had helped draft the terms of the easement. A grant from the Grantham Foundation made the purchase possible.

The property has been in the Page family for more than half a century. The family periodically harvested the timber to improve the forest health, said Lisa Spaulding of NEFF.

"There's all kinds of wildlife," Page said of the land, which includes a pond that was enlarged years ago with the construction of a dam. "Occasionally I'll see a moose as I canoe around the bend."

There are old wood roads on the property, but part of the access from the Mechanic Falls end of the property is in deteriorating condition. That will be improved in the coming months, Spaulding said.

Page said the family acquired the property in the 1950s by accident when the previous landowners needed to sell it for money. Page was married at that time to the chief of medicine at Newton-Wellesley Hospital in Newton, Mass., where she spent many hours volunteering her time.

Her brother-in-law owned property in Oxford and because of that she and her late husband began to summer there, eventually buying the land and living in an old camp on the property. Three Page family camps were built on the land during the ensuing years. To this day a red-painted camp has no electricity or running water, and that's the way she intends to keep it, Page said.

Although public access to the area is poor, Spaulding said the organization will improve it and create markers in coming months. NEFF is also recruiting volunteers to help with educational activities to demonstrate the results of long-term woodland stewardship in southwestern Maine. Anyone interested in volunteering should contact Spaulding at lspalding@newenglandforestry.org.

Spaulding said the land will be open to hunting under state hunting regulations, but motorized recreational vehicles are banned with the exception of any trail that is already actively maintained by a local snowmobile club. In this case, Spaulding said it appears state trail ITS 89 runs along the border of the property. If a club maintains it, then it would remain in use.

A dedication is planned for summer.

"I'll come back in the summer as long as I live. But I don't swing from an apple tree anymore," chuckled Page.