STUART — The great-great-granddaughter of Charles Fleischmann, who help patent Fleischmann’s yeast, is spending $8.5 million to buy nearly 8 acres in Martin County for conservation and recreation.
Pittsburgh resident Louise Yeiser is buying about 2.7 acres adjacent to the county-owned Hobe Sound Scrub Preserve and a 4-acre parcel adjacent to the East Fork Creek stormwater treatment area, according to the county. Yeiser also is buying about an acre near her home in the North River Shores community, which is near Stuart.
Heiress donates land adjacent to Hobe Sound Scrub Preserve
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The 28-acre Hobe Sound Scrub Preserve, seen June 1, 2026, is comprised of rare sand pine scrub habitat. The preserve is located on an ancient sand dune that formed when most of Florida was under the ocean over 100,000 years ago. In 2018, Martin County purchased the land using funding provided by the Florida Legislature. Pittsburgh resident Louise Yeiser donated a parcel adjacent to the preserve to Martin County for preservation.
(CRYSTAL VANDER WEIT/TCPALM)
“She is exhibiting unprecedented philanthropy in Martin County,” County Commission Chair Sarah Heard said. Yeiser has previously donated to the county, Heard said.
“For me, donating this land is not simply an act of charity,” Yeiser told commissioners. “It is my response to the concern I feel as I watch open land disappear to apartments, townhouses, big-box stores, strip malls, storage facilities and warehouses.”
Florida land being developed quickly
Martin County Commissioners approved a land donation from Pittsburgh resident Louise Yeiser. The donation included 17 parcels for conservation, including a parcel adjacent to the Hobe Sound Scrub Preserve.
She is more concerned about preserving Florida land than Pittsburgh land because she has yet to see Pittsburgh land be developed as quickly as property in Florida, she told TCPalm.
“More people like (her) must step up and preserve more environmentally sensitive land,” said Hobe Sound resident Jeff Wittman, who had met Yeiser serendipitously at the Hobe Sound Scrub Preserve.
Located south of Bridge Road between U.S. 1 and Southeast Dixie Highway, the 28-acre Hobe Sound Scrub Preserve is comprised almost entirely of rare sand pine scrub habitat, which supports a variety of listed species such as the threatened scrub jay, according to the county.
The land adjacent to East Fork Creek was going to be a 100,000-square-foot storage facility, Yeiser said, and the parcels around the Hobe Sound Scrub Preserve were going to be townhomes and apartments.
Calling on others for help
“What I am doing is only a very small step in a very large task,” Yeiser added, “but I wait with great anticipation and hope for the next person or persons to approach this county with the gift of land to remain undeveloped in perpetuity, helping preserve not only the appearance of Martin County but also its feeling, its character and its sense of place.”
Others in the county have the means, Yeiser said, to shape what Martin County looks and feels like for future generations.
“I am speaking directly to those people today,” she said at the May 19 County Commission meeting. “What we choose to protect defines us, and that choice is ours.”
The 28-acre Hobe Sound Scrub Preserve, seen June 1, 2026, is comprised of rare sand pine scrub habitat. The preserve is located on an ancient sand dune that formed when most of Florida was under the ocean over 100,000 years ago. In 2018, Martin County purchased the land using funding provided by the Florida Legislature. Pittsburgh resident Louise Yeiser donated a parcel adjacent to the preserve to Martin County for preservation.
She encourages anyone with means, especially anyone famous, to follow her example, she told TCPalm.
She is buying the parcels and donating them, she said, because she “just got tired of watching the land disappear. I was wondering who would stop it.”
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She went to Martin County officials, she said, and asked what land they had their eye on.
“I wanted to pick what the county would need,” she said.
Keith Burbank is TCPalm’s watchdog reporter covering Martin County. He can be reached at keith.burbank@tcpalm.com and at 720-288-6882.
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Heiress is buying Florida land to stop development