PENN TWP - Tom Succop and his wife, Jo Ann, drove up the new driveway to the Succop Conservancy on Thursday afternoon in his grandfather T.W. Phillip's 1942 Ford.

The new driveway off West Airport Road is part of the first phase of improvements to the conservancy, which had been Tom Succop's boyhood home, and later, he and his wife's home.

The Succops were there to help celebrate completion of the first round of improvements.

The Succops in 2001 donated the home and other buildings on the 50-acre estate to the Butler County Community College Foundation so it would be preserved and be used to promote environmental education.

"I think they're doing a very good job adapting it to a public facility," Tom Succop said. "The transition into an educational environmental facility has been exceptional."

"I'm just really pleased," Jo Ann Succop said. "It's a joy to come back and visit. What I hope is that the property gets used a whole lot. There's a lot of potential."

They moved into the house in 1996 after his father's death. They moved back to their home in Pittsburgh after donating it to BC3.

The main house was built in 1830, the home of John Maharg, an Irish immigrant, according to a pamphlet on the Conservancy.

The family owned it until it was sold in 1921 to Tom's father, T.W. Phillips Jr., the son of the founder of the T.W. Phillips Gas and Oil Co.

In 1935, Phillips' daughter and her husband, Craig Succop, bought the property and raised their three children, Tom, Anne and Craigie. At the time, it was a farm.

Additions were built to the house in 1948, Tom Succop said.

About 80 people attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday.

In 2002, the foundation received a $35,000 state grant, plus money from the county, to develop a master plan for the facility. In 2003, it received another $74,000 state grant for the improvements made so far.

The old cobblestone driveway off Route 8 was hard to walk on and with the volume of traffic on Route 8, it was replaced with an asphalt one off Airport Road for better access and safety.

Some of the old cobblestones were placed on the sides of the new driveway. A parking lot was built. And electrical wiring was updated in the house and throughout the property.

A first-floor bathroom was made handicap accessible and another restroom was added. Other improvements include widened doorways and emergency exit lights.

"We concluded our greatest need was access to the facility," said Bill Speidel, the foundation's executive director.

Also, volunteers from the Butler Garden Club placed identification cards on much of the vegetation on the estate.

Speidel said more grants would be sought for other improvements.

Among the first might be the renovation of the barn. Rooms inside the house are too small for classes, so the barn could serve that purpose, Speidel said.

The conservancy has been used for BC3's Kids on Campus summer program to teach them about the environment. It has been used for art shows and workshops, the site of the Audubon Society's summer plant sale and the Penn State Master Gardeners of Butler County's Spring Garden Market plant sale.