Friends of Lusscroft Farm entertained hundreds of enthusiastic visitors to an autumn fund raiser with a Halloween flavor. All the funds generated from the crafts show and rummage sale will go to help restore the farmhouses and keep the farm alive. “If its attributes were sympathetically enhanced and properly marketed, then Lusscroft could become a thriving destination in the growing market for agri-tourism, eco-tourism, and heritage tourism,” said Sue Gerber, a passionate supporter of Lusscroft’s eventual renovation. “I haven’t counted the money yet from the rummage sale and the crafts exhibit, but people have been thronging in all morning, and the cash box is filling up,” Gerber added. Lusscroft Farms occupies 578 acres in a sharply undulating countryside in the Kittatinny Mountains, in Wantage and Montague and townships in Sussex County, off Route 519 and Neilson Road, not far from High Point State Park and Stokes State Forest. The farm originally spread out over 1,050 acres of prime farmland, which included ponds, woodlands, meadows, and barnyards. Today, the brick-red barn and outbuildings stand empty, and on most days the site is still and quiet. The only sound of cattle lowing comes from neighboring farms. But between 1914 and 1930, Lusscroft was the site of a thriving, model dairy farm, in which workers used the leading-edge technologies of the time to nurture a herd of purebred Guernsey and later Holstein and Jersey dairy cattle. The cattle were lodged in capacious barns equipped with electric lighting and ventilation, and they drank from watering troughs where fresh water was replenished automatically. The farm was the pet project of James Turner, a Montclair stockbroker, who invested $500,000 a huge sum for the time in creating the farm as an exemplary dairy operation. Still standing today are 23 buildings, including the Turner Mansion, the Manager’s Dwelling, the Outlook Lodge and the dairy barn and farm structures In 2002, the N.J. Department of Environmental Protection took over Lusscroft from Rutgers University, and High Point State Park now administers Lusscroft in cooperation with the State Agriculture Development Committee. To create the farm anew and to develop trails for hiking, cycling, and horseback riding will take years and dollars, according to Donna Traylor, director of the New Jersey Office of Conservation and Farmland Preservation. Years, and hard work on the part of many volunteers.