Aug. 14--UNDERWOOD -- Hank Patton gazes out across a collection of forests, orchards and pasture in the heart of the Columbia River Gorge and sees a vision of the future.

Patton, a New York native who moved to the Northwest in 1964 to attend Reed College, has spent the past 35 years building his vision. Tapping into money raised by private foundations, Patton's nonprofit organization -- called World Steward -- has assembled the core of a biodiversity reserve near the point where the Little White Salmon River pours into the Columbia in the southeast cor er of Skamania County. Vancouver-based Columbia Land Trust owns and manages 203 acres in concert with Patton's organization, thanks to a $1.25 million grant in 1999 from the Paul G. Allen Forest Protection Foundation.

Patton, meanwhile, is in the process of pulling together a jacent land to serve World Steward's broader vision. "How much abundance can we design into an ecosystem that's treated as a partnership between the natural world and humans?" he said. Columbia Land Trust intends to manage the property in cooperation with the scientists and thinkers Patton has assembled to advise his enterprise, said Glenn Lamb, the land trust's executive director. Patton, 60, intends to wring every last drop of economic, social, cultural and environmental benefit out of the nearly 600 acres World Steward controls. It starts with the old 221-acre Highland Farm, with a view directly across the Columbia River to Mount Hood.

It is west of Underwood. A partially restored barn may become a square-dance hall, complete with a space for performing arts. A wood-fired artisan's bakery will rise in the center of a classroom and studio complex built with green materials. Wind turbines will capture nonpollut ng energy (subject to gorge scenic area review). High-quality timber thinned from the forest will provide the wood for musical instruments played during concerts on-site. Patton isn't taking a hands-off preservationist approach to the landscape. Instead, he envisions turning the area into an economic engine that perpetually employs local people.

"We don't think you can protect a place anywhere near the human world without creating a partnership," he said. "It's not about locking it up, in other words." To that end, the organization has chosen not to take advantage of a property tax exemption available to nonprofits. "We think that World Steward has a responsibility to be a good corporate citizen," Patton said. "We're not feeding the poor -- we want to see it run as a business." Farther up the hillside, near an orchard growing organic pears, Patton acknowledged the sheer economic value of subdividing and selling the property. Close enough to Portland for ambitious commuters, the area features stunning views of the Columbia Rive Gorge.

"This is a developer's dream, of course," Patton said. Yet, in contrast to the proliferation of "For Sale" signs spreading across the county's extreme northwest corner near Mount St. Helens, Patton isn't interested in selling to the highest bidder. Instead, he envisions an entirely new economic model. Patton is prone to using terms such as "vetted third party metrics," "collateral outcomes" and "incentivize" in describing his idea for a new type of intergenerational commerce. It essentially boils down to this: Future generations would be willing to p y for clean water, abundant food, and good health -- especially if they could get it by making relatively inexpensive investments today.

"There's vastly more real value in managing whole systems as though the future mattered," he said. A real-world example of this kind of intergenerational redevelopment utility went before voters on Vashon Island last November. The utility would have borrowed money with bonds backed by the state to improve energy conservation in homes and businesses on the island in Puget Sound. The utility then would have repaid the cost of weather-stripping, fluorescent light bulbs and insul tion through their monthly utility bills. Voters defeated the measure. Rita Schenck, executive director of the Institute for Environmental Research and Education in Vashon and a sponsor of the initiative, credits Patton for his guts and his ability to gather so many scientists to create the biodiversity reserve and educati n center.

"Putting it all into conservation helps, but his vision is so much more sweeping than that," Schenck said. For Patton's full vision to bear fruit, Schenck said it will be important to establish systems such as intergenerational financing to construct the buildings and pay the staff necessary to operate it. "Hank is so focused on things outside of himself, he doesn't focus on things like salaries very much," she said. "And that is what it's going to take." Patton, who lives on the farm, earns a living through consulting about intergenerational financing. He insists that he doesn't want to become hung up with "artificial timelines" involved in putting together educational programs and financing plans.

He remains stubbornly optimistic that he can pull off his vision; it's just a matter of time. "Things happen in their own way, just like the seasons happen in their own way," he said. "A lot of it has to do with sticking with the dream and keeping the faith."